


YOUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE

by orphan_account



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Awkward Crush, F/M, Fluff, Illustrated, Illustrations, Silly, ZATR - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-02-26 15:35:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 53,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2657297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tak has the unfortunate timing to turn up at Zim's house the night that he's kidnapped by traitors who want to use him as a pawn in their plot against the Almighty Tallest. As a good citizen of the Irken Empire- and as someone who could stand to win some more favor with the Tallest- she can't stand by and let this happen, even if it means she has to cooperate with her worst enemy. ZATR. (Complete)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Internal Monologue of Two Parts

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! This fic was my NaNoWriMo project this year. It's a ZATR fic and there are fan characters heavily involved in the story so I understand if it's not what you want to read haha. You've been warned.

 

A blue-green ball filled the monitor. It didn't look nearly as disgusting as she'd assumed it would be. Actually it was kind of nice. It looked clean and sparkly from up here. She'd seen the pictures from the surface and knew that wouldn't hold up, but right now it looked decidedly easier on the eyes than he deserved.

Maybe that was fitting, though. He wasn't ugly either.

She checked the mug shot of him in her briefing file. Well, at least not as ugly as you'd expect someone like him to be. Not noticeably ugly. Plain and average. A little tired and distracted. Definitely harmless, big-eyed, small and a little smeetish in the face. He looked like he belonged in food service. He should have stayed there.

There was some kind of pretentious metaphorical statement to be made in there about appearances and inner ugliness but if she actually made it her commanding officer would give her a smack upside the head.

He nudged her now. She recoiled.

"You know what to do, right?" he said.

She snapped a salute, standing ramrod straight. "Yes, sir!"

"And you know that job of yours is not to stand there and stare at a screen like a slack-jawed monkey, right?"

"Yes, sir!" She felt like she should be able to think of a comedic retort to that but she couldn't. If she could it would be most unwise to say it out loud anyway.

Of course he was just yanking her chain the way he usually did when he was tense about a mission. There was nothing in particular she was supposed to be doing right now, they were still in transit and  he hadn't briefed her yet.

As if reading her thoughts he led her away from the screen. "Here are the materials for your mission."

"Nice weapons," she noted. She'd also been provided with a disguise hologram and some light armor. And a breathing mask.

"You are to use them in self-defense only, got that? We want him alive. You should have a handle on that fact, since literally not one thing we can want him for can be accomplished if he's dead, but I don't trust you, honestly."

"Thanks, boss. Yes, I get it. Alive. No use to us dead." She could think of a few uses for him if he were dead, since she'd had to deal with more than a few animal corpses in her time and she'd gotten good at figuring out what to do with them, but this wasn't a time to make suggestions. "What if I'm attacked?"

"Then try to stun him." His tone made it clear that he did not think he had to actually say this. "If he has anti-stun installed, then shoot him. How many ways do I have to tell you we want him alive? Just assume that any contingency should lead to you trying to take him alive if at all possible."

"Got it. Yes, Boss." There shouldn't be an issue, though. He wouldn't have access to Pak updates like anti-stun. He should go down just as easily as the brainless animal pests she'd dealt with every day of her old life. That seemed like a long time ago now, but she was confident it would all come back to her. Some things you never forgot.

One thing stumped her though. "Why is there a breathing mask?"

"This planet is toxic. It's barely habitable. Your Pak should filter out the garbage in the air on its own, but better safe than sorry."

She probably wouldn't need it, since she had heavy-duty filters installed to conteract the toxic gas exhaled by Vortian swamp rats- why people thought those would make good pets she never knew and she also didn't know where they thought they got off just releasing them into the streets when they inevitably got too big but now she was dwelling. Anyway, the mask couldn't hurt.

"Sure thing." She started to strap on her equipment. This was seriously nice stuff. It looked like Irken military grade, too. Especially the hologram. It was a good one. Brand new. Dynamic. Realistic. These were definitely not for civilians.

She wanted to know how he'd gotten all this stuff but thought it best not to ask. There was something to be said for plausible deniability. She could always pretend she didn't recognize it as military.

"We'll be there in four hours," he said. "Remember, do not expose yourself. This planet doesn't seem like much, but you never know what might be useful. You don't want to ruin the whole place for us by getting them whipped up into an alien panic."

"Of course not, boss." She knew she shouldn't say it, but she couldn't resist. "Say, boss, if you don't trust me so much, why are you even sending me anyway?"

He looked her up and down and she suddenly realized why. She hoped he wouldn't say it out loud. That would be just embarassing. They were alone, but it would still be embarassing.

"Oh, I trust you enough for this," he said, and she was grateful, because she knew the real reason: if she died in the mission she wouldn't be missed.

"Thanks, boss." It wasn't a surprise, or anything. Most Irkens were more or less expendable. She had gotten into a bad habit of thinking that they weren't in this particular group, but that was her fault, not the boss's. "I won't let you down."

She saluted. He nodded shortly and turned away. "Good."

He walked out of the room, the door wooshing shut behind him. She glanced up once more at the approaching Earth. Was all that stuff about not exposing herself just to mess with her, too? If Earth hadn't caught on to anything by now they were never going to.

She shrugged and turned her attention to getting ready for her assigned task.

It took only a few minutes to get all her stuff arranged. She should have waited. Now she had to wear all this for the next three hours and fifty minutes.

Maybe she was a little excited. She didn't seriously think this was going to be dangerous at all, despite the target's nasty reputation. It would definitely be an exciting job. It had been way too long since she'd wrestled a sewer gator or stomped slorbeast larvae or even sprayed for fire hornets. And she'd always heard that sapient creatures were 'the most dangerous game', whatever that meant- it sounded interesting, at least. It had always a private dream of hers to capture a fellow Irken someday. She'd regretted a few times that she hadn't made the grade for law enforcement or guard duty.

She could not resist gleefully rubbing her hands together. Maybe after she caught him, she should get an autograph.

After all, how many people got to meet the disgraced Exile Zim in person, let alone capture him?

She'd never seen inside an Invader's base before, either, however loosely you could apply the term 'Invader'. Most people didn't unless it was their own base. She should take a few pictures while she was there.

Oh, and best of all, it wasn't going to be her job to make sure Zim stayed captured once she brought him in, so when he tried to escape- as he had a reputation for doing- it would not be her fault and it would not be her problem.

She didn't think she'd ever looked forward to anything this much in her life.

She looked back out at the Earth.

Hold on. Something was out there. What was that? A ship?

It was probably Zim's. He did live here and he did have a ship. She considered reporting it for a moment, but that stuff wasn't her job and it was probably nothing. They were shielded really well anyway.

She watched the ship for a while to see if it did anything interesting. It just got closer to Earth.

Should she report it? Nah. It was probably just something Zim was doing.

* * *

"Kinda far out, ain't it?"

"Yes, yes," Tak muttered, crossing one leg over the other.

The driver looked over his shoulder at her. He was a large, shapeless man with a face that slid right off the surface of her mind. She would never remember him.  She could hope he felt the same way about her. If not, a shot of her psi implant would make sure he never remembered her face anyway.

"What'cher doin' all the way out here?" he asked.

"That's none of your business."

He blinked. "Okay..."

There was a screen suspended from the ceiling, showing her their approaching destination. Earth. Its blue and green patches and the empty field of surrounding stars failed to impress.

The cab smelled like old meat and the driver kept trying to talk to her. She might move the recovery of her ship up her to-do list even though there were things she had to do on Earth that would logically come before that. She never wanted to ride in another cab.

"Mind if I turn on the radio?" He must have finally realized she didn't want to talk.

"All right." She fiddled with the loop of her psi implant. Every so often it felt slightly itchy where it dove into her skin.

He flicked the speakers on. Some kind of lightly distorted stringed instrument began to play.

Not so bad, actually. She closed her eyes to it.

She shouldn't dwell on the meat odor, or the odd stains on the seat, or anything else as minor that was getting under her skin. Things were going to be looking up very soon.

Very soon indeed.


	2. Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i originally planned on having an illustration for each scene break but then this chapter is super super long and i have stuff going on so... i think i'll just stick with one picture per chapter for now. maybe some chapters will have two, one at the beginning and one at the end, but there's nothing going on at the end of this chapter that looks like it needs an ilustration, so there's only an illustration at the beginning here.
> 
> most chapters are not this long! this one has a lot of... setup, i guess. i think it's about twice as long as every single other chapter.

**Chapter 1: Gravity**

"This was a terrible idea."

Zim's boots crunched in the gravel. It was wet. Everything was wet and it smelled like molding death. He could taste gastric acid in the back of his throat. It burned in his chest. Stupid, unreliable meat shell. Life would be easier if he were fully mechanical, like GIR. Not exactly like GIR. Not stupid like GIR. Just more easily repairable.

Maybe someday.

He yanked on GIR's leash. His small servant was treading too near the edge of the path and if not reined in he could lead Zim off into the damp grass. Possibly. Not that Zim was entirely lost in thought and failing to pay attention to his surroundings, or had been a minute ago, or anything like that- he was still alert- it was just better if GIR stayed on track.

Ugh, okay. He had been letting GIR lead him around. He had to stop doing that. GIR seemed to barely notice Zim was there. He'd dart into the river or something and that was the absolute last place Zim wanted to be.

GIR didn't seem to mind the tug. "Ooh! Look at all the people!"

"Shh!" How many times had Zim needed to remind him? "You're a dog!" Zim glanced around at the people. He saw a little humanspawn jumping rope and chanting something. And someone else sitting on a bench and eating an apple. (It smelled very sour and acidic. Not even close to edible. Or was that smell the remnants of the rain in the grass?)

And there were two other humans, sitting under a tree, wrapped around each other... lying in a tangled heap on top of a blanket. They were making funny noises.

Zim slowed to a stop. He tilted his head, trying to get a better view. "GIR, what are they doing?"

With his momentum GIR could have yanked the leash out of Zim's hand and gone on without hm, and often had in the past, but this time he didn't. He stopped dead. He seemed equally interested in the pair of humans. "They're kissing!"

"Hm?" Kissing, kissing, Zim knew what that was, it was... "Oh!" Zim turned away and pulled GIR along with him. "That's horrible! Don't look, GIR. Ugh! Kissing! Why didn't you say so?"

"What did you think they was doing?"

Zim opened his mouth to correct GIR's grammar and closed it again. What purpose would that even serve? Instead, he said "I thought they were strangling each other." Which would be an odd thing to do in public, since humans had outlawed murder. Hence Zim had stopped to look on in confusion.

"What a barbaric species," he said to himself, following automatically as GIR pulled him along on the leash. "They outlaw murder, but not fornication?"

"Love is good for you!" GIR said.

Zim hadn't really been talking about love as such. Love was different from the mouth-touching and the wrestling and the... things. Love was mainly a weakness of the mind and emotions, that could lead to certain physical activities in certain species but did not necessarily lead there. Or so he'd been told.

However they'd gotten onto the subject, if GIR was laboring under the delusion that love was 'good' it was Zim's duty to correct him.

"Love? Good for you? No it isn't. Where would you get such a horrible idea?" Not from Zim. Maybe GIR was being allowed to watch too much TV. Zim should find more work for him to do... of course, Zim had plenty of work for GIR to do, the problem was that GIR didn't do it.

GIR hugged himself. "When you love someone, you feel all warm and happy!"

"No you don't," Zim countered. "Love makes humans fight over each other and get all mopey and... stuff." He stopped dead in his tracks, resisting GIR's tug on the leash. "Why are we on the bridge?"

"I like the bridge!" GIR hung over the railing to look down into the water.

Zim had been letting GIR lead him again. It was sometimes hard not to do, when GIR seemed so certain of when he was going and Zim did not care to examine his surroundings too closely due to their unpleasantness. But it was a bad idea. Because of stuff like this. What had GIR done? He'd led Zim right to the river. Where had Zim least wanted to be? The stinking river.

Zim leaned over the side of the bridge, looking down into the water. "Hm." He could see his reflection. It looked much too human. Not at all like the image he was familiar with from his ID entries and mission files.

Which was the point, of course, and the disguise was working quite well. It was just sometimes an odd feeling, seeing that face that was his face but also not his face.

"Don't you want to fall in love, Master? Then you won't be sad and mad at me no more!"

It took a moment for Zim to process that statement. "Love?" He sputtered. "Me? GIR! Don't speak nonsense!"

"You need a lovey to make you happy!"

Zim sighed and rubbed the side of his head. There was a slight pain there that GIR's shrill voice and lack of logic were handily propagating. "I can't love, you fool."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm an Invader. Invaders need no one. And love no one." He rubbed his chin. This was flagrantly stupid even for GIR. "Perhaps your artifical intelligence systems need calibrating. Let's go home, GIR." He picked the leash back up and turned towards the base.

"Don't you love me, Master?"

"GIR! No!"

He tugged the leash. GIR heeled obediently at his side. "But you always take me with you! And we talk to each other!" GIR sniffled. "Why don't you love me, Master?"

Oh, geez. Zim's eyes flickered over the surrounding humans- none paying attention, thank goodness- the wet and uncompromising gray sky- the grass and the trees- it was all so wrong, so messy and organic and Earthy. He felt a little ill all of a sudden. He needed to be inside where it smelled better.

GIR continued to sniffle. The funny sick feeling in the base of Zim's chest began to radiate up into his throat. He didn't think it had anything to do with the stench after all.

"GIR, quit it."

"Okay!" GIR bounced up ahead at the end of his leash. All signs of distress were gone, just like that.

Zim let out a breath he had not realized he had been keeping held in. The discomfort started to drain from his chest. "Let us no longer speak on the subject of love. I find it is silly and pointless." And it just made you sick. If Zim was that uncomfortable when GIR was upset, with whom he shared only a professional relationship, he didn't want to know how it felt to love someone. Luckily he would never have to.

"But love is good!"

"No more of this, GIR."

"Love makes the world go round!"

Zim blinked. "It does?" He shook his head. "No, GIR. Gravity makes the world turn. Not love." For a second, he had nearly believed GIR. Troubling.

Of course that was how things were supposed to go. GIR was an information retriever. He was supposed to be reliable and supplement Zim's knowledge about the planet. Zim was not supposed to need to question GIR's statements, and he especially shouldn't have to disregard them. He was supposed to simply accept them.

Was that why the Tallest had given him this particular model? To sharpen his brilliant mind with critical thinking skills? It was exhausting. But it must be helping him be more brilliant! He wasn't about to question the Tallest.

"Love makes the world go round and makes life worth living and brings people back from the dead," GIR chirped.

Zim wished he had not noticed the lustful humans under the tree. This line of conversation was highly annoying. "Love doesn't do anything, GIR. It has no purpose." In some cases he understood that it facilitated the survival of a species, but Irkens did not participate in such things anymore, so then love must not have any use anymore. He did not want GIR to think he needed to find love, either. That could only lead to horror.

"But it makes you happy! Don't you want to be happy?"

What was this all about? Did GIR think he was not happy? Or was this just more of his usual nonsense?

They were about to pass a 'No Passing' sign on the sidewalk. Zim hesitated beside it until GIR pulled him past it. Hopefully no one had seen.

He was just curious enough to ask. "Why do you think I need love to be happy? Am I not an Irken Invader?"

GIR giggled. Ah, so this was simply his nonsense.

Zim looked straight ahead. "Okay, never mind."

"Because you're mad all the time!"

"Mm." They had reached a crosswalk. Zim paused on the sidewalk, looking back and forth. No cars were coming. He hurried across. GIR bounced up and down as if hurrying was a game. "I... suppose," he said, once on the other side. "I am often angry because..."  _Because you do horrible things and never follow my orders, GIR, that's why._ No, he wouldn't say that. "Because this planet and the stinking, creeping life forms on it infuriate Zim! I look forward to their demise."

"Oh!"

"Yes. It has nothing to do with a lack of love hormones in my bloodstream." He shuddered. "I'm busy!"

"Okay."

"And in any case, you shouldn't..." This line of conversation was only getting stupider and stupider. "My happiness is not your concern, GIR. You see, happiness is mostly for inferior species that, um..." How should he put this? "Ah. My duty is more important than my happiness, GIR."

GIR giggled. "Duty."

Oh, of course, that was the word he'd notice.

Zim drew his lip back in disgust. He eyed GIR. His vacant smile.

Zim's jaw got tight. GIR so often went off to do something stupid instead of following orders. Did GIR think happiness was more important than duty?

Of course not! GIR was a SIR unit and he would place importance on whatever Zim told him was important! "Do you understand now, GIR?" Zim demanded. "Even were I so inclined to... egh... fall in love, or... eat tacos, or whatever other pointless thing you think I should do to be happier, I couldn't. Because I have a mission to complete for the good of the Irken Empire!"

"Okay!"

They were only a few blocks from home. It looked like they were going to get there without incident. Zim sighed to himself. Good.

They walked in silence for about a block or so, and then...

"I love you," GIR said.

Zim viewed GIR out of the corner of his eye.

GIR kept speaking. "I love pig, and Santa, and the club, and tacos, and..."

Zim rolled his eyes.

"And poop, and flies, and my head, and, and, that bike that's 'bout to hit you in the face, and-"

"Huh?" What was that last one?

Zim heard a faint approaching noise. Some kind of... steady whirring noise. He turned his head.

"Hey, kid!" a voice hollered. "Get out of the-"

The first impact was on his shoulder and ribs as he turned. He felt his balance go and then he struck the pavement, knee, thigh, hip and elbow.

Zim was still for a moment, not quite registering that he had been hit and probably injured. So far he didn't feel any pain.

The gray sky above hurt his eyes. The sun was right there behind the clouds. Too close. Too bright. He turned away.

There was a young human staring down at him. "My parents are going to kill me!"

The face. Nose. Eyes. Two holes in the nose. Eyes wide and pupils surrounded by white. Mouth hanging open. Zim had to look at the shape of the eyes and the mouth separately. Frightened? Yes, frightened, he thought.

Why was this human frightened? This human had not been struck by a bicycle on a normal walk home. The human was not the one who should be frightened, or angry, or whatever else.

Something dug into Zim's soft abdomen- the bike. The handle.

Zim pushed the bicycle off of his body. The human reached down and grabbed his hand. He yanked away. "Don't touch me!"

"I-I was just gonna help you up!

"I can get up myself!" He stood, moving all in segments. He still felt no pain, though he probably would soon enough because if nothing else his skin must be abraded somewhere. "How dare you!" he seethed. His hands bunched into fists at his sides. He imagined the palm of his hand tingling with the human's sweat, although of course that was impossible- he was wearing gloves and paste, after all.

The human cringed. "I'm sorry! Man, don't sue me!"

"Sorry? Sorry? You hit me! You pitiful fool! What kind of incompetence- what, did you not see me? Is that it?" Zim shuddered with rage and with the first burning sensations in the skin of all the various places where he'd hit the road or the vehicle. He knew the human should have seen him because he was green and the surroundings were gray. Had the human been playing with its phone instead of watching the road? Zim had nearly gotten hit by a car that way the other night.

"What  _idiot_ thought your species should have vehicles?" He gave the bike a kick. "I should just take this infernal thing and-"

The human was quivering. Zim choked back his righteous anger and bent over to dust off his uniform. He couldn't afford to bring too much attention to himself. Better defuse this. "I mean, I'm sure there's no reason to press charges. Just get out of here and forget what you've seen! Go! Go now!"

The human hesitated.

"Go now before I destroy your face!"

The human grabbed the bike, uprighted it and sped off. Zim smelled human blood and realized the accident had injured both parties, though not severely on the part of the human, judging by the speed at which it vanished.

He hoped that human was smarting. "The nerve," he said to himself. "Not even looking!"

He'd wanted to throw the bicycle into space. Or the rider into space. Both.

"That's how you meet a girlfriend!" GIR squealed.

"Eh?" No. Zim had definitely not heard that right. There was no way GIR was still on that subject. Please.

But in fact he was. "When you meet someone special, you go right into them and fall over, wooooosh! Now she's all sorry and she'll go out with you!"

Zim sighed. "No, GIR." He wouldn't bother explaining why anymore. He picked up GIR's leash and continued down the sidewalk. He smarted all over. Nothing serious, just scrapes from the road mostly.

Had that even been a female human? He had no idea. Not that it mattered either way.

Gravity. They'd just been talking about gravity. Gravity had driven him to the pavement. He felt carefully of the scrapes on his face. A powerful force, gravity. Much stronger than love, anyway. Maybe Zim could do something to the Earth's orbit. No- increase gravity so that all the humans were stuck to the surface of the Earth and then go around picking them off like flies. Yes. That shouldn't be too difficult. He could already think of a few different devices that might do the trick...

He'd reached his front walk. He felt a weight lift off when he stepped through the door. There were no human eyes on him in his base. He could be free from the scratchy weight of contact lenses over his eyes. It smelled so much better in here, too.

He turned to tell GIR his latest plan, but GIR was already running off.

Zim called after him, but he'd already vanished into the toilet.

Zim sighed. The base was slightly chilly and very quiet. He considered turning on the TV or turning the heat up but he'd been taking too much electricity from the neighbors lately. He'd heard them complaining about their bills. It would ruin everything if they looked too closely at the base.

Besides, he had to get to work.

* * *

The ring glistened in what little sunlight there was. Someone must have dropped this. It had narrowly missed falling into the sewer.

Tak nudged the ring into the grate with her toe. It felt with a soft clanking sound. Lost forever.

She had thought the evil glee of destroying some stranger's chance at recovering a valuable possession might lift her mood. It did not. She still didn't have her ship back. She didn't even have any injuries or horrible tales to tell from her encounter with the Membrane household's security. The garage was simply very firmly fused shut, and no one was home to bully into opening it, and she couldn't get through the DNA lock, even though she knew ways to get through such locks and normally at least one of them worked.

She hadn't thought humans were capable of that kind of technology. Maybe she would look into it later.

She looked up, hearing the approaching whir of wheels. She tensed.

The bike that appeared around the corner had a familiar human riding on it.

"Ah, you're back," she said, smiling. It was a bit hard to smile correctly around humans, especially when one was in a poor mood. Not smile enough, and one appeared to be sullen and withdrawn. Smile too much, and the humans all wanted to run away.

She may have over-smiled just a touch, judging by this one's expression. "Y-yeah, lady. Uh, I stuck the thing on his hand like you said."

The human was tense and bleeding from the elbow. She wondered if Zim had put up a fight.

"Of course. Here's the payment you were promised." Tak took out her wallet. She had found the sight of this wallet annoying until recently. She had taken it mostly because it seemed somehow wasteful not to. She had not foreseen an actual use for it. It contained Earth money. She had not planned to return to Earth. It had just been sitting in her Pak, reminding her of the huge pile of garbage in her station on Dirt that she'd thought might be useful but wasn't and now just sat there because Tak never threw anything away unless it was direly, direly awful and she had so many things now.

The wallet had proved to be useful, though. Thanks to its contents this child had not only agreed to go along with her ruse but had agreed to wait in the bushes for Zim to come by for hours while Tak was free to do as she wished.

"Um, I kind of hit your friend with my bike, he'll be okay, right?"

She looked up, eyes wide as she processed what she had heard.

She giggled, picturing the bike running into Zim, picturing the confused pain on his face. He always looked so startled when he was hurt. As if nothing bad could happen to him. Arrogant little squid.

Well, that helped her feel better. "I think I'll pay you extra." She added another bill.

"Thanks, miss. Is he gonna be okay?"

She rocked back and forth on the soles of her feet. The child backed away. Ah, definitely too much smile there.

"No," she said. "He will not be okay."

The child ran away.

Humans certainly could be fast when they wanted to be. If Tak wanted any more errands done she supposed she'd have to find a new minion. It wasn't a concern, there were plenty of humans on this planet.

Tak pulled the other half of the tracker out of her pocket. Usually, she would have modified this to be a bit more sleek, but she'd decided it wasn't worth the time and expense since she was in a hurry and she wouldn't be using it for long. It was bulky and dented, the way she'd found it in the garbage, and it fit awkwardly in her hands.

Zim should be in his base tonight. If he wasn't there, she'd know where to find him now. And once he, by necessity, left his base, she would have knowledge of his movements. This was one way she was compensating for not taking the time to scout everything out in full beforehand. This way might prove to be better. The last time she'd come here, she'd run into some... unexpected contingencies.

Zim was at home now. At least, he was if he hadn't moved his base.

He probably had not. He was a creature of habit. If 'habit' meant 'repeated fruitless actions born out of insanity'.

She wondered what he did when he was alone in his base. Since he obviously wasn't conquering Earth.

* * *

Zim flicked on the device. Inside the glass dome, the rat squeaked and flopped down on the ground, unable to hold itself up underneath the increased gravity.

He flicked it back off. The rat stood up.

"Good!" he said, voice ringing startlingly loud in the empty space. "The device works perfectly. Now it just needs to be BIGGER!"

He rubbed his hands together. This prototype had only taken him a few hours. The larger version of the device would be almost as easy to construct. Now he just needed to nail down where to put it, when to put it into place, and how to conceal it...

A sound. He turned, scowling. "What is that? Oof!" His neck complained when he turned his head the wrong way. He had become a bit stiff from the accident this afternoon.

The computer did not respond. It must not have detected anything. So it was Zim's job to check it out. Again. Even though he was busy with this right now. Oh well. "Take me upstairs, computer!"

The house level appeared empty. Zim peeked out into the yard. He didn't see anything...

Wait! There, a shadow. He tensed, readying for battle.

It was just a regular old squirrel out in the yard. Not even Dib or anything. He un-tensed.

It couldn't be Dib, anyway. He was off on some trip. Miss Bitters had asked Zim to carry homework assignments to his house. What a menial task, for such a hated enemy... how had Zim forgotten? He had been very angry to be forced to lower himself that way...

What was that cold feeling? Zim frowned. He felt a cold strip across his belly.

The window was ajar. The cold he felt was the breeze coming in.

"GIR!" he snapped.

"Yes?" The reply was from somewhere in the kitchen. GIR was probably cooking something. There was a bit of a smell.

Zim slammed the window shut. "How many times have I told you to not leave the window open?"

"I don't know!"

Zim sighed. "Don't even open the window in the first place!"

"I had to let the smoke out!"

Zim shook his head. "Whatever! I'm going back to work. For once in your life, don't open anything or burn anything or destroy anything!"

He headed towards the nearest lab entrance. Halfway across the floor, he heard another noise.

He froze. "GIR, was that you?"

"I don't think so!"

The couch was empty, the TV was off. The yard was empty.

Zim peeked into the kitchen. GIR was stirring something at the table, and...

Impact. Lower back. Then face in the floor.

A shrill laugh. He was screaming. Something metal spread him out on the floor and turned him to face upwards. His breath was rough in his throat. A human! A scientist? Dib? Worse? Could it be worse? What could be worse? Were his guts about to spill? Would something slit his throat?

There was a figure looking down at him. Eyes. Mouth. Grinning. Eyes purple. Normal. Her skin was green. This was an Irken.

She had a metal thingy embedded in her eyebrow and a dark mole on one cheek. Zim knew this Irken. Why- Zim was not in any real danger whatsoever!

"Oh, come on, it's just you!" he snapped.

Tak threw her head back. "Just me?"

Zim's heart was hammering in his ears. His pulse was erratic. And that was all so unnecessary. Tak was Irken. She wasn't going to do anything as horrible as what he'd been picturing- she would just be a nuisance. He'd been making good progress on the mission, too, he did  _not_ need to be interrupted right now.

He flipped himself out from under her Pak legs and rose up onto his own. Now he was at her eye level.

He'd thought he was going to die. How dare this- creature enter his base and attack him in his own home? "What do you want? I'm busy!"

"Busy?"

"Yes, busy!"

She raised an eyebrow, glancing over the kitchen. GIR hummed to himself as he cooked. "Yes, very busy, I see."

What was she trying to imply? That Zim was helping GIR make whatever that was? The nerve! "I was busy in the  _lab!"_ he snapped.

"Oh, yes, that makes more sense." She looked him up and down. He was aware of the bruises and scrapes that lingered on his face.

His teeth ground together. "If this is about my mission, you can't have it!"

"Of course not! No one has any interest in your fake mission, Zim. I'm just here to talk."

"I don't want to talk to you. I'm completely occupied with my very real mission. You're going to have to leave. Security! Remove this offending Tak."

Nothing happened.

Zim glanced up at the ceiling. It was completely still. It was not responding to his command in the slightest. "Computer. I said, remove Tak from the base!"

Tak smirked at him.

"Computer!" he snapped. Nothing. "GIR, defensive mode!"

GIR threw his bowl of batter up against the wall and flopped down on the floor. "I'm hit!"

Had Zim not repaired GIR's defensive setting? He thought he had. Oh, well. Clearly he would not be able to rely on GIR.

So he would have to rely on himself. Fortunately he was reliable.

Zim circled Tak on his Pak legs. She watched him, still and smirking. She was not making the slightest attempt to defend herself. Why, it was as if she did not even expect him to attack her.

Which he would. Any second now.

Just as soon as he found an opening.

"Computer," she said finally. "Get rid of this fool!"

Zim saw motion out of the side of his vision. He ducked. "No! Computer! My computer!"

The cable whizzed by just above his head. The base wasn't going to follow his orders and stop attacking or it would have done so by now. He had to get away.

He ducked the other way and another cable nicked his antenna. Whoof, that was a close one.

Then something caught him around the waist.

He hit the floor again. Cables were at his wrists and ankles, keeping him pinned to the floor. He struggled and they only tightened.

Zim bared his teeth. He was about sick of getting knocked over.

Tak stood over him, hands on hips. "How does that feel? Comfortable?"

He tugged on the cables. "Computer! Release your master!"

Tak cast her weight onto one hip, tapping her foot. She smelled funny. Kind of sweet and perfumy. How dare she come into his base and smell funny? And turn his own base against him!

"You hacked my security system!" He continued to strain against the restraints. It was just as unhelpful as ever, but he couldn't just take this lying down! Even though he kind of had to now because he was pinned to the floor.

"Yes," she said. "I did hack your security system. How kind of you to notice.. I'd say I did a pretty good job!"

"Yes, ha ha, very funny, let me go! I told you I have work to do!" He twisted and turned and something went mildly wrong in his lower back. He flinched.

She leaned down close to his face. "I must say, I didn't think you had a very good security system. But it's doing a pretty good job of detaining you right now. I'm impressed."

Zim had work to do. He was tired. He was sore. He clenched his teeth. If he could avoid fighting her- well, he would still win if he fought her, but- "What do you want? Do you want money? Because you don't deserve any, but-"

She was laughing at him. "I don't want money. Even if you have any."

He huffed. Of course she wouldn't take money. She was just here to torture him, wasn't she? And he was a little low on funds anyway so maybe that was for the best. "What, then? Weapons?" Okay, he wasn't giving her any weapons, he only had so many of those. "Amazing inventions?" He wasn't going to give her any of those either, they were Zim's! "Oh, for-" A sudden misgiving seized him. "You don't want me to cook for you, right?" He wriggled against the restraints. "I'll give you anything I have! If I was just going to throw it in the garbage anyway, I mean."

Tak's eyes narrowed to slits. "No!" She paced back and forth, the swallowtail on her uniform fluttering behind her. "No one wants anything you have, Zim. Seeing as how you don't have... anything."

"Then why are you here?"

She tapped her fingertips together. "I happen to be between living places. I thought your base might serve for a while."

"You said you just wanted to talk!"

"I lied! No one wants to talk to you either, Zim. I was just delaying you."

"You want my base!" His base! His center of operations! His fortress! His home! No! This would not stand!

She glanced down at him with her head thrown back. "I don't exactly want it. It's not very good. But using it seemed... fitting."

She had attacked his base. His precious base! "You want revenge!"

"No! Zim!" Her composure broke completely for the first time. "Stop guessing what I want! You're wrong! Just let me speak for once! I'm going to occupy your base until my check goes through for my apartment deposit!"

"This is-" Zim blinked. "This is about your rent?"

"Yes! I'm only late because I needed to put together some new equipment thanks to you, so you're going to house me," she spat. "Or rather, you're moving out."

She had broken into and reprogrammed Zim's only home and center of operations because her rent was late? "How dare you? I have an official mission!" He was frozen. Pressure on his wrists and ankles. His heart was pounding. Splayed out like this, she could do anything to him. Like make him her captive audience for hours and hours while his gravity plan sat in the basement, not being worked on. "Let me go!"

She stopped in her tracks, looking him over. "Oh.. all right."

She snapped her fingers.

He flew through the air and hit the dirt outside in the yard.

He spat out dirt and turned to see the door slamming shut. "Hey! I didn't mean let me go like this! I meant-"

Oh, she knew full well what he meant!

He ran to the door. It was locked. His own house! How? Why? No!

He pounded on the door. "Let me in, Tak!"

"No!"

"GIR! Do not stand for this! Throw the interloper out of the base! Computer! GIR!"

"They won't be of any help to you," she said.

He hissed and kicked the door.

"Yes, by all means, damage your own base," she said. "I'll leave eventually and I'm not making any repairs before I do."

"Get out of my base!"

"Oh, not right now."

He heard her walking away. Next he heard a mechanical hum. All the lasers in the yard were targeted on him.

He ran out of the yard, slowing down once he was a safe distance away on the sidewalk, where the lasers couldn't reach him.

He ground his teeth together. That Tak!

He paced back and forth. Dib was of course still out of town... doing some kind of family thing, maybe, Zim didn't care. That left... no one to call on. He'd have to do this on his own.

Where were the weak spots in the base's defenses? If he used one of those he could get in and oust Tak.

He growled and pressed his fists to the sides of his head. There were no weak spots in his defenses. As soon as he found weak spots he fixed them!

* * *

Tak watched Zim pacing from the upstairs window. As she had suspected, he did not know about the gaping hole in his security field that had admitted her a few hours earlier. Otherwise, he would have just gone around the back and popped inside.

His security field didn't reach nearly as far as she would have liked if he was still in sight without being targeted by the defenses. She did not plan to be here long, however, so she might forego upgrading it. Who was even going to bother going after her here anyway? Zim? His little human child friends? She could fend them off well enough with this.

Interesting, though, that Dib's security was so much better than Zim's.

To think that she had gone to all that trouble to make sure she got a tracking device on him  _before_ coming here because she'd assumed she would have trouble getting through the defenses and might need to keep track of his movements. Lo and behold, his technology was so terrible that she had just walked right in. That was always better, of course. Really, apart from the minor trouble in recovering her ship, this was going perfectly.

Outside, Zim stopped pacing and stood there glaring up at the house. She wondered if he could see her up here.

She stretched. Zim's ship was up here. Since she was around anyway she'd thought she might as well scope it out. Take it, if it were better than her ship.

She hadn't done a thorough sweep of it yet but just from appearances she did not think it was at all better than her ship. It would only serve as a very, very last resort. It might have some useful parts, however.

Well, it may be amusing to watch Zim stand around in frustration on the sidewalk but he wasn't going anywhere important and she had other things to do.

She checked the Voot Cruiser more thoroughly. It didn't even seem to be good for parts. Everything was very worn, and much of the vehicle seemed to have been repaired multiple times. She thought she saw duct tape.

As she turned to head downstairs she heard Zim scream.

It wasn't more of his angry scream, or the indignant scream, both of which she had heard a lot of this evening. He sounded afraid. As deeply afraid as he'd sounded when she'd initially attacked him.

Maybe something interesting was happening. She went back to the window.

Zim stood underneath a lamppost, clearly silhouetted against the night. Whoever he was staring at was hidden in the darkness.

Apparently the person wasn't frightening, because Zim just looked disgruntled now. She could not see his face clearly, but his chest was thrown out and his shoulders were bunched. "Who are you?" Ah, so he didn't know either. "My parents aren't home. I have homework. I can't stay here and talk to you!" He turned away.

He was so ridiculous. 'I have homework'. Honestly.

A figure stepped into the streetlight after him. Barely taller than Zim, but standing ramrod straight in a way that did not look naturally human.

And holding some kind of object...

Zim turned. "Huh? Hey. Hey, put that down!" He raised his hands up over his head, palms out. "I'll give you all of my Earth moneys. Don't shoot!"

Tak shook her head. Pitiful.

The other figure giggled. "I don't want any Earth moneys. Are you Zim?"

"I am Zim! Who wants to know? Who are you?" He edged backwards, much too obviously.

"Stop backing away," the stranger said. He stopped.

Tak began to wish she had popcorn.

"That's an Irken blaster!" he said. "Wh- you're with her, aren't you?"

Tak froze. No. That person was not with her and there weren't supposed to be more Irkens on this planet.

"What do you want?" Zim demanded. "I'm getting tired of this!"

The mysterious figure spoke. "Sign this?"

"Eh?"

"Sign this picture?" she asked sweetly.

Tak wondered if she'd heard correctly. She must have. Moving hesitantly, Zim took a pen from her and signed a scrap of paper she gave him under the spotlight.

"There," he said, handing it back. "Was that all? Can I go now?"

"Ooh," she said, looking at the scrap of paper. "Thanks! But no, you're not going anywhere."

There was a flash of light. Very, very bright in the moonless night, even compared to the streetlight. Tak squeezed her eyes shut.

When the fuzziness cleared, Zim was kneeling on the ground with his arms wrapped around his waist. He'd been shot?

Tak found she had a tight grip on the windowsill. She still could not make out his face. If there was blood, it was not visible from here.

"You stunned me!" he said shakily. "How dare you?" Fatigue was creeping in with his anger. He'd had an eventful day by this point... and he was so incredibly transparent. He was tired and he was beginning to whine.

Tak realized she was relieved that he hadn't been killed. Zim was sort of a constant in her life. It would be... odd if he died.

The strange Irken down there on the sidewalk leaned down and hooked her arm under Zim's arm, hauling him to his feet. His legs must have been temporarily paralyzed. They were hanging uselessly under his body. That was why she'd shot him in the belly and not the head or neck, which would have paralyzed him completely- she had wanted him incapacitated but still able to talk. For some reason.

"Why weren't you in your base?" she said. "I kinda wanted to see it."

"Well, that's just too bad!" he snapped.

"Oh well!" She dragged him off into the dark.

"Where are you taking me? Hey! Hey! The Tallest will hear about this! Put me down! Hey!"

His voice eventually faded into the night.

Well, that had certainly been an event. Tak stared out into the empty night for a little while, convincing herself that he really had just vanished. The whole thing had happened so quickly.

Well, things would be easier with him gone. She had expected that he would leave and come back with his little human friends in tow and then she would have to waste some time driving him away. No, he was gone now, apparently.

Where exactly was he going?

It was certainly convenient that Tak had put a tracker on him. She had thought it would be useful, but she hadn't expected it to be quite this necessary.

There was nothing especially useful on it at the moment. They were still on the sidewalk just a little out of sight. She'd have to check the tracker again later.

She headed downstairs. Time to loot Zim's lab, then. Not that she expected him to have anything she wanted.

* * *

Tak and kidnapped in one day! Oh, and he'd gotten hit with a bicycle. Things had to look up soon. If they did not, Zim would make them look up.

"Leggo of me!" He pulled one more time and finally got free of this repulsive woman. Yes!

Although- his legs were still not working. He crumpled to the ground. Here in the suburbs he couldn't use his Pak to get around, either- someone might see him.

He growled as the woman pulled him to his feet. "Hey, we're almost there." She seemed less happy now. Good. Zim hoped she died painfully. "You didn't put up much of a fight, did you?"

Zim gasped. Now insults? "You ambushed me!"

She wanted a fight, huh? He swung at her face. She threw him to the ground.

This was what, the tenth time now today that he'd hit the dirt? Zim was just going to strangle something.

She picked him back up. He twisted towards her. He just wanted to tear her skin off, just a little bit of skin, just a little.

"Calm down, boy," she said. Something cold pressed against the back of his neck. He felt cool and sleepy then, and though he still wanted to hurt his tormentor it was something that could wait.

An emotion suppressor. Zim had heard of these. A couple times he'd even considered using one, he'd heard they made it easier to work. He was glad he hadn't, they did not seem... right.

Still, although it was not fair that he should be deprived of the will to harm this evil kidnapper, the accompanying helpless fear was just as dampened. He hadn't realized he was afraid...

They were in the woods now. Zim had observed that humans often took other humans into the woods to shoot them and leave them for dead. Would anyone from Irk seriously want Zim dead that badly? There were rules about this, weren't there? It never happened. Irkens did not casually murder those in the way like this- so  _obviously._ And so without style. Otherwise- well, Zim wasn't stupid. He was aware that if it was a thing that was done, he quite possibly would have been shot in the face years ago. People were envious of him, and all that.

But it simply was not a thing Irkens did. That he knew of. It was so... simple...

Unless his attacker had an elaborate torture device waiting for him at the end of this journey, he was going to be even more angry with her than before.

Something appeared out of the darkness. A ship! A fairly large saucer-style ship.

So Zim was not going to be murdered here on this horrible planet like an animal... was he going to be put on trial again?

Of course that wasn't a real trial before! He'd never been put on trial for real. It was all just a silly party.

Zim didn't much like that kind of party. He didn't want to go to another party like that.

He also did not want to be taken to Foodcourtia, given a traffic ticket, or anything like that. Hopefully none of those things would happen.

He was led into the ship, down a hall, past rooms- he saw figures in them, he tried to look closer, but she turned his head away with her hand.

"Irkens travel alone," Zim snapped.

"Oh wow, it's like I'm not an Irken and you're not an Irken and you're just making things up," she said. "Really, what kind of weird thing to say is that?"

Zim could not immediately think of an answer. "B- but- only the Tallest fly with a crew," he said.

"Yep," she said. "We're both Irkens. I get that. I know that kind of thing. You think I'm five?"

"But-"

"Just don't talk to me."

Zim held his tongue, simply because he was at a loss now. His attacker seemed to be rather insane.

They'd reached a large room now. She pushed him inside and-

The nerve! She'd kicked him over onto his face. Her foot had connected somewhere a bit lower than his Pak, too.

His face was really starting to hurt by now. He'd fallen onto it too many times in a row.

"Well, Eet," a voice purred. "I see you managed this after all. I'll admit, I am a little surprised- but I'm very pleased. Go tell the cafeteria to make you something special."

Only the Tallest had a real cafeteria on deck! Zim trembled with wrongess. He knew the Tallest's voices and this was not the Tallest. Whoever this was, he shouldn't get to have a cafeteria.

"Sir!" she snapped.

"Eet, you seem less pleased than I would hope. I did just praise you."

"He was boring." She kicked him in the leg.

"What a shame. Don't hurt him." It was a little late for that now! "Get away from there. Go to the cafeteria."

"Ngh."

"Cheer up, we're going out for ice cream next."

"Buh. Fine."

So this Eet person was getting two treats in a row for capturing Zim? That wasn't fair! Of course Zim was very valuable and deserved to fetch a high price but Irkens shouldn't be rewarded for disrupting important missions.

Zim heard departing footsteps. Someone picked him up under the arms, gently enough, and set him down on a chair.

Zim dusted himself off, sniffling. Some dust had gotten into his airways. Because he'd been on the floor. "Let me go at once! I have a mission to get back to!"

He looked up to see who he was talking to. He was looking at-

Zim pulled away. "No! No no no, no!"

The other Irken's face fell. "Oh, Zim. You recognize me, don't you? That's a pain in the butt. I guess I should have expected it, but you never expect a celebrity to think  _you're_ famous, you know?"

"You're evil. I stopped you already!"

He blinked. "Did you?"

"Yes!" Yes, it had to be him. Zim had put in a little extra effort remembering his face, in case he ever needed to testify against him. Irken trials didn't usually work that way, but it was best to be prepared. "I called in and reported you. I got you sent to jail! And I'll do it again! Watch me. I have a direct line to the Tallest." He turned on his comm. "Hello? Hello!"

He had forgotten. His radio didn't work properly and it didn't quite reach the Massive from here. He dialed GIR instead. "GIR! GIR, I need help. Call the Tallest and tell them-"

The other Irken was laughing.

"Tell them, uh," Zim continued, "I've been captured, by this evil... um..."

"Yes?" GIR said from the comm's hologram projection.

"Hold on a second, GIR." He turned to the giggling Irken. "Okay! Why are you laughing?"

"Oh, keep talking," he said. "I wasn't laughing at you, I've just... never heard of an Invader with a GIR unit before. You know they were a failed yogurt dispenser model?"

Zim stared at him.

The man smirked. "Did you not notice that you were living with a frozen yogurt machine?"

"No!" Zim spat. GIR had a strange obsession with making food, but never had he made frozen yogurt, not even once.

Zim turned back to the call. "Now listen carefully, GIR..."

* * *

"...I've been captured by an evil traitor and my legs aren't working, so I need you to come right here! Right now!"

Tak leaned a little bit closer to the kitchen door. She didn't need to. She could hear perfectly well. GIR was only out in the living room, his comm systems worked suprisingly well, and Zim was quite loud.

She dipped her ration stick back into the rations cup she'd taken out of Zim's stores and tucked it into her mouth. She had plenty of her own food but Zim's things were free. Because she was stealing them. And it was nice when things were free. And stolen.

"Okay!" GIR said from the other room..

Zim's voice was a little off. Disaffected. She wondered if something had already happened to him. "GIR, you're just sitting there."

"Oh, sorry, Master! The Tak lady's my master now!"

"What." Yes, he definitely sounded a little flat.

"Yeah, she stole me!"

"But..." Zim sighed. "I suppose I'll deal with that later."

Tak checked the tracker. He wasn't very far off yet. Out in the nearby woods, she would guess.

She took out her mobile and checked for any recent warrants for Zim's arrest. Hmmm... the last one was from twenty years ago. Presumably they didn't exactly expire, so she wouldn't discount it as a possible reason for his disappearance.

"GIR," Zim was saying. "I've been captured by an Irken named Vaz. He is a very dangerous criminal, and he wants revenge! You have to call the Tallest and-"

He was disconnected then. Abruptly.

Tak chortled to herself. Vaz? Now this was getting ridiculous. Surely it must be some elaborate prank.

Then again, who would be behind it? Not Zim. Not possibly. He wasn't the sort to come up with this on his own. The "revenge" part was almost definitely his idea, though. Zim seemed to have an odd preoccupation with vengenace.

Hadn't Vaz been executed?

Tak tapped her lip with the end of the ration stick. Actually, she didn't recall hearing whether he made it all the way to an existence evaluation.

But surely he'd been executed. And if he hadn't been, why would he want to capture Zim?

* * *

Vaz crossed his legs casually and leaned back, smirking at Zim. "Would the Tallest have really answered? Ah, I guess they would have... we've all seen it."

"I stopped you before," Zim snapped. "Don't get so cocky."

"Did you? Really? I guess I don't disbelieve you, I just don't remember that."

Vaz was tall-ish and had high cheekbones and almond-shaped green eyes. Zim suddenly remembered his own soft smeety face and the padding around his waist. No, that wasn't important right now! Besides, Zim looked fine... better than fine... er, what had he been going to say? "I remember! I called the authorities."

"You called the police?" Vaz's antennae angled with interest. "I know I'm dragging things out, but... Invader Zim called the police?"

"I did," he said. He wasn't an Invader yet back then, obviously.

"And they came? They didn't arrest you? They arrested me instead?"

"Yes!" What kind of question was that? "It was my duty!"

"Well, aren't you a good, obedient little boy, Zim? Calling the police on schemers." Vaz's voice was thick and shuddery with repressed laughter.

Zim scowled. He saw no way at the moment to get a hold of the Tallest, so he was going to have to put up with this stupid conversation for a little bit longer. "What is it you want with me? Revenge?"

"No, no. I guess you didn't pick up on this, but until you told me I had no idea that you had anything to do with getting me arrested. I actually have a very nice surprise for you." Vaz stroked the underside of his chin. "I wasn't expecting you to recognize me, though. There's no way I can convince you to stay here and enjoy the surprise now, is there?"

Zim puffed up in outrage. "I want nothing from you, you traitor!"

"Too bad... well, before we start, I want to let you know that I didn't want to use any violence bringing you in. It's just that that's the only way anyone would agree to go get you. And..." He trailed off, frowning. "Zim, did Eet attach something to the back of your neck?"

"Yes."

Vaz leaned over, looking Zim up and down. "An emotion suppressor. And this is how you act with it on? I couldn't even tell you were wearing it until I saw it. I think I'll leave it there, if you don't mind. Anyway, I was going to say that from here on out, any injuries you incur are going to be your own fault. We will not harm you if you come quietly."

He was quiet for a moment. Zim took in the surroundings. It was a simple control room. There was a big open door to his right, the one he'd entered through, and he couldn't go through it because his legs had no feeling in them.

"Actually," Vaz said. "You know, this is a little bit awkward. I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot."

Zim twitched. "You think so, do you?"

"Yeah. Hey, I don't know you. I don't know how you normally act. I know how you act on camera and I know the rumors, but I don't know if those are completely fair. Do you mind if we just sit here and talk? You might be a completely normal, reasonable Irken fanatic for all I know."

Zim turned and glared at him. "You don't remember me at all, do you?"

"Knowing you in person? No."

"We were researchers together."

"Mm hm..."

Zim's voice became icy. "For ten years."

Vaz considered this. "That is weird. I would think I'd remember someone like you."

Zim's teeth ground together. The lights in here seemed too bright. The emotion suppressor was heavy on his neck. He wasn't sure it was working correctly. He felt awfully annoyed. "I would think so too."

"So according to you, you found me out and called the cops."

"Yes!"

"That would have been right before things started getting really interesting for you. I remember that part. It was because of you that I escaped. Indirectly. You seem reasonable enough right now, if I let you go, will you come with us quietly?"

"No!" he barked. "I have a mission to get back to!"

"You really think you do, hmm?" Vaz studied him. "What if I tell you where we're going- no, no. I don't think so. Sorry, that's probably not a good idea. But it's somewhere you want to be more than you want to be on Earth, trust me."

Zim drummed his fingers on the bench beside him. He blinked. His mouth was dry and his headache was back. He was bruised in several places.

He couldn't let fatigue dull his mind. Not right now.

"Well," Vaz said, "I'm afraid I'll have to imprison you. For your own safety, more or less. You're not popular. if I wasn't so busy I'd be happy to let you ride in here with me. You seem very interesting. It's a shame I never noticed you back at the lab."

Zim blinked a few times and held up his head. "Well, yes." Zim was very interesting.

"Shame what the Tallest did with you."

"Eh?"

Vaz- the hideous traitor that was Vaz, Zim hadn't forgotten that at all, or anything- stood up and turned on his intercom. "Rikk, Skulk. I've got a job for you two."

Two Irkens appeared in the doorway, both male. Zim did not recognize them. One of them was taller than himself but shorter than Vaz, the other was massive and hulking.

"Don't damage him too much," Vaz said, turning to the controls.

Rikk's eyes were angry. Zim pulled away.

Skulk grabbed him around the neck over his yammering protests and slung him over his meaty shoulder. Zim hammered his fists on Skulk's back to no effect.

"Don't hurt him," Vaz called after him.

If he didn't want Zim to be harmed he should have left Zim in his base where he belonged!

* * *

Tak had finished her snack. She set the empty container down on the table. She took the tracker out of her pocket. Zim was still off in the woods somewhere.

Tak tapped her foot on the floor, staring at the tracker. She took out her mobile Internet scanner and looked up a few things.

Hmm. No, Vaz had never been executed, he'd escaped in the confusion surrounding Tallest Miyuki's untimely death.

Tak rubbed her cheek with the tip of her finger. But what would she do about that? Absolutely nothing, right? It wasn't her concern. Besides, just because he existed didn't mean he'd really kidnapped Zim. What would he possibly want with Zim? What would anyone ever want with Zim? Zim's base, yes. Zim's horrible fake mission, yes. Under the right circumstances. But Zim? Just him. Not anything he had. Just Zim himself. What was the use of stealing that? What would you  _do_ to him? After having a few laughs at his pain, which got old after too many times in a row because he always reacted much the same way, there was nothing whatsoever she could think of to use him for.

This was all very unexpected.

* * *

Zim was thrown down onto a surface- this one was soft and giving, not another floor or road.

He reflexively curled into a ball. His legs responded only sluggishly. He pulled his knees up to his chest by moving them with his hands.

Skulk grunted and slammed the cell shut. Rikk glared in at him through the door. "Listen, pipsqueak. If it weren't for Vaz, I'd rip your little arms off the way you got mine ripped off, all right? So don't get on my nerves!"

Zim peeked through his fingers. Rikk had one shiny metal arm.

"Huh?" Too much had happened. None of it was supposed to happen. Zim had not planned for this.

"I'm not feedin' you!" Rikk kicked the wall, turned, and marched out with Skulk waddling behind him.

Zim wasn't hungry anyway, so there.

He was still unable to walk. In a minute he'd feel more mobile and then he'd inspect the cell.

He rolled onto his side, pillowing his cheek in his hand. The Tallest had to know about this...

He'd called GIR once. He could do so again. Or...

Zim flinched. He opened his communicator. "Dial Earth number 555-5309."

A moment later a grating voice filled his cell. "Hi! You've reached Dib, paranormal investigator extraordinaire! I'm out saving the world right now, but leave your message and I'll get right back to you as soon as I can take your case! Aw, man, what am I doing, no one's ever really going to call-"

It beeped.

Zim had forgotten he was out. By the time he came back Zim would have rescued himself or been slaughtered. "Dib, you stink!" he said. "This is me. Zim. I have not sabotaged any of your equipment in your absence simply because you aren't worth my time." He managed a short laugh before ending the message.

Well, that had been an amusing diversion, but now what? He couldn't walk.

He tried calling GIR again and got no answer. He retracted the comm.

Was he really just going to have to sit here until the nerves in his legs re-connected to the nerves in his spine? Zim did not like waiting.

He felt distant vibrations going through the cot and into his body. He wondered if the ship's engines were running.

He put his hands over his eyes and lay still for a minute. He was a little sore. He'd been in worse places to take a short rest.

The cell was smallish, paneled walls, a glass door that was fogged over for privacy at the moment. There was a small screen in one upper corner. A wall panel underneath it probably served as the controls. It was all in beige and gray tones- not very Irken- and it was so  _clean._ It was completely clean. There was not a speck of dirt. It smelled so fresh.

Zim took a deep breath of it.

He sat up and inspected the wall his cot was next to. He pulled experimentally at the wall panels. He did not think he could pull them off. Maybe he could pry them...

He pulled at it with his Pak. Nothing doing there either. Ugh.

Well, there was one thing he could do, at least. With a small wince of trepidation he pulled the emotion suppressor off the back of his neck.

He had braced himself for the grip of panic but not much happened. Maybe the effects took a while to wear off or maybe he just wasn't afraid right now. Hard to tell.

He studied the suppressor. It was a small piece of plastic, molded to fit the back of a neck. It might come in handy for something at some point. He'd take it.

He tucked it into his Pak and lay back on the cot, folding his hands over his belly. He could feel the rise and fall of his own breathing. His breathing was fairly even, not too fast or ragged sounding. Good.

"Yes," he told himself softly. "This is only a brief delay. Nothing to worry about..."

His legs still had no feeling.

* * *

Tak had made an attempt to forget the whole thing, but since she was sitting on Zim's couch and being stared at by his robot and she'd been eating his food and this whole place smelled like him, it was a little hard not to repeatedly notice that he was not there.

She checked the tracker again. No, he was not here. He had just left the planet's orbit, in fact.

Wait, hold on. Really? Zim was in space now. Well- he'd been taken by an Irken, so of course he was in space. Why not?

Yes. Zim was in space now.

Okay.

Fine.

She'd bite.

She opened up a radio link.

* * *

"Mm." Zim had just gotten comfortable with the idea of hanging out on the cot for a while and now GIR had decided to call back. He sat up, moving himself into a seated position with his arms, since his legs still weren't back online, and pulled out the radio. "Yes..."

The projection from his radio was not of GIR's face. "HEY! Tak, what do you want?"

"Zim- where are you?"

"Not right now, I'm very-"

"Busy? Yes, I know. I heard you calling your SIR unit." Oh. She wasn't supposed to know Zim was gone. He didn't want her thinking she had the base all to herself. So much for that... "Is Vaz actually there or was that just... I don't even know. Is he really there?"

Was she calling him a liar? Zim squinted at her. Had she not done enough already? "I do not tell lies, Tak."

"Of course you don't." Her voice dripped with disdain.

"Not about this."

"So he's really there? A criminal who was in the news a hundred years ago is just... there now. And he needs you badly enough to have you kidnapped."

"Yes! I just spoke to him. He wouldn't say what he wants with me, he'd only say that-" Zim checked himself. He could hear fear creeping into his voice. He wasn't going to make an appeal to Tak! She only wanted him to fail! "I'm escaping, obviously."

"Obviously. So I should expect you back, then."

"Yes, I'll be back in... an hour. And I'll wrest you from my base! Don't get comfy."

Zim heard knocking. He looked up. The foggy wall of his cell- which was also the door, he supposed- had become transparent. The woman who'd kidnapped him was standing there.

"No calls," she said. She held something up and stuck it to the door. A signal jammer!

Tak's projection had turned to static. Ah well, he'd be seeing her soon. Very soon. Because he would be escaping soon. And then he would be going home and kicking her out of his base.

Yes.

Definitely.

Zim rolled back onto his side. His legs could go ahead and start working again any minute now, that would be good.

* * *

"Right, then," Tak said, putting her feet on the floor. "I don't think I need to worry about that at all."

"Yeah!"

Tak jumped about a mile. MiMi had not had a speech function and Tak wasn't used to people answering her rhetorical statements to herself.

GIR was sitting on the arm of the couch, staring at her with a vacant smile.

GIR smelled horrible and his voice was piercing. Why did Zim even keep this thing around? Certainly not for protection, since GIR didn't protect him whatsoever.

"We're gonna have fun!" GIR said.

"What exactly is your job?" she said.

GIR's eyes flashed red. "To retrieve information, protect the base, and follow the orders of-"

GIR twitched. "-stupid- all of it- stupid!"

GIR's eyes were now blue again. "What?"

Tak stood up and backed away from him. "I see," she said.

She put her hands on her hips. "Your 'master', is he... usually truthful when he tells you about the scrapes he's in?"

"What is truth?"

Er...

Tak scratched the underside of her chin. "Why, exactly, is Zim willing to reside in the same building with you?"

GIR shrugged. "I don't know! I don't think Master likes me..."

"Doesn't he?" Tak suddenly remembered a bizarre tidbit. "Didn't he promise to give you the moon or... mm... something like that?"

"Oh, yeah!"

There was some kind of weird stupid gravity pulling Tak down into this madness with every word she said to GIR. It might be time to stop talking to him. "All right. Go watch TV or whatever it is you do." She headed down into the lab. Surely somewhere in all of the mess down there Zim had  _something_ that could pick up on that ship's signals and give Tak just a little bit more information about what was going on.

On the way down, she wondered if she should notify the Tallest about any of this...

Absolutely not. She wasn't going to bother them until she did something impressive. She'd learned her lesson now, she wasn't going to tell them her plans. Results only.

Although they might like knowing that Zim had been kidnapped. He and the Tallest had a history and all that.

Hmm... she would wait a little while to see if he escaped first. He had done that before.

She was in Zim's lab now.

This was a typical base. Large and winding, with tunnels that slowly dug themselves further into the earth day by day, consuming metals from the soil and spreading out like a fungus. Someday they were meant to be repurposed as utility tunnels for the Irken occupation that would in theory follow Zim's residence here.

So far it was only him, living alone in a base that was expanding around him. She wondered if he ever got lost in it.

There was one good thing to be said for Zim, she supposed. He was very clean. His base was easy to navigate because everything was put away and polished to a shine to an almost obsessive extent. She stumbled across only one sign that he even lived here- some kind of workstation with tools left out and a test subject aimlessly wandering in a maze. That was probably what he'd been doing when she'd interrupted him.

She didn't feel like searching the whole place. "Computer," she said, "does Zim have any equipment I can use to scan for nearby ships?" She should have thought of asking the computer sooner. It hadn't occurred to her because she'd never lived anywhere with this kind of AI.

"Oh, yeah, I think he keeps it in the living room?" the computer mumbled. What an oddly styled personality for an AI. At least Zim didn't seem to be the sort to download his personality into things. She did not think she would be willing to live in the base if he'd done that to it.

Wait, living room? She'd been down here for nothing.

She grimaced at the rat staring at her from its little pen. "Computer, take me upstairs."

She checked the end table in the living room, since that was the only place here to keep anything besides the bookcase, which was clearly just there to help the disguise. Everything on it was useless.

She found a tub of paste in the drawer, and behind it a TV remote, and behind that...

Goodness.

Zim had a heavy-duty signal interceptor.

She picked it up and tilted it back and forth, looking it over. It looked functional. There was nothing outwardly wrong with it, at least. Not terribly wrong.

It was a serious piece of equipment. Only dedicated spies had these. Not Invaders. Why- she thought she could get into Paks with this.

This was not legal. She shook her head. What was he using this for? Where had he gotten it? He hadn't built it, had he? It looked too good to be built by him.

It was used often, it was worn. Not broken down, but worn. The seams were rubbed flat and the paint was gone in patches. She could picture him hunched over it and fiddling with the dials until the treads were all smooth.

Holding something that he'd held and used so often felt somewhat intimate, almost as if she were indirectly holding his hands. But even though it was distateful, she couldn't let that affect her, she had to use this.

She took note of the setting it had been left on before she changed it. A setting to sweep a location on the Massive's current route. Zim wasn't by any chance spying on the Tallest with this thing, was he? (Who was she kidding? Of course he was.)

The scanner found something quickly. She set it to transmit audio and turned up the volume.

"...bring me one too, will you? Thanks. Ah, Eet. Did you block his calls?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Who was he talking to, the SIR unit?"

"Yeah, I guess." She must not have heard any of their conversation, then, because Tak sounded nothing like GIR. "No one was really gonna come for him, Boss."

"Of course not. I'm not stupid enough to think anyone's coming to save him, I just don't want him tipping off the Tallest. Although come to think of it they probably wouldn't believe him anyway."

"Do you have any other jobs for me?"

"Not right now. Look, I know I've been short with you, but I really do think you did well today."

"Yeah, sure, boss, I know I did."

This was quite touching but absolutely none of it was anything Tak cared about. She wished she could fast forward this thing.

"Boss?"

"Yeah?"

"Rikk is kinda mad, you know. Why's Zim here, exactly?"

Okay, good, this was what Tak wanted to know. She turned up the volume.

"We're using him mostly to make a statement," the man said. "Everything he's done is proof of what's wrong with our system. He's just one guy, Eet. It's ridiculous. He should have been executed years ago."

Tak's back felt ruffled up. 'Wrong with the system?' This really might be Vaz. That statement hardly sounded very loyal.

"Okay," Eet said.

"And we're going to prove- hold on."

There was a sharp click. Silence fell.

Tak waited. When the sound didn't come back on she decided he must have blocked the signal. Perhaps he'd been notified somehow that his conversation was being intercepted.

If that exchange hadn't sounded suspicious enough, the decision to block it should set off alarm bells. Whatever statement they were planning to make could not possibly be a good one. Maybe she should warn the Tallest.

Or...

Tak was very nearly an Invader. She was one in everything but name. She was quite good at stealth missions. Perhaps she should go see what was going on for herself. If she foiled something against the Tallest they would be much more impressed than they would be if she just tattled to them.

She didn't have much to do here anyway besides try to recover her ship.

Yes. Tak would go check up on things. It would be an amusing diversion and it could win her some valuable favor with the Tallest. It sounded like a perfectly good idea.

No use in endangering her own ship, however. Of course if she really put her mind to it she could recover the ship. That certainly was not the issue. She just didn't want to risk her own ship. Right.

"Computer," she said, "take me to the Voot cruiser..."


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> illustration is at the end this time!

Zim was beginning to feel some tingling in his legs. They must be waking back up.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. He kicked them back and forth a little bit. They seemed to be doing more or less what he told them. Good! It was about time!

He stood up. A little unsteady yet but nothing that couldn't be worked with. Phew.

He explored the perimeter of the cell. Up close there was really nothing about it that he hadn't been able to see from the cot.

He looked under the cot. There was nothing underneath the cot.

He checked out the control panel on the wall next. As he had assumed, the TV turned on when he hit the big green button. The other buttons controlled the volume and the station. That was it. The control panel did nothing else. It didn't even let him use the channel guide or the Internet. Useless.

Zim turned off the TV. He investigated the edges of the panel. They were flush with the wall and he could not pry them away even the slightest degree. He couldn't pry the buttons off, either. There were no screws in it that he could take out, just teeny-tiny nails too small to pick out with his claws.

He checked all the wall panels he could reach. None of them were at all loose.

He studied the beige, lightly speckled, slightly roughened texture of the nearest panel. He ran his fingers over it, taking in and cataloguing the almost rocky feel. The panel was hard and solid, and could not be pulled or scraped away.

This was a very un-Irken way to build a ship. Zim was used to bright colors and lots of exposed cables for easy access, and smooth lines and curves reminiscient of viscera. Oh, and metal. Smooth metal, and no artifically rough textures. Someone had to intentionally put these panels here to give the wall this texture. What was up with that? Zim could see no reason for it.

He ran his fingers over the panel again. The rough texture was easily felt through the thin fabric of his gloves. Something about it made him want to keep touching it.

He pulled his hand away. He had no time for such menial, simple little body pleasures like texture. No one did. That was why Irkens did not have weird rocky stuff in their bases.

The floor was entirely smooth. It didn't appear to be concrete or metal or any material Zim was familiar with, but it was hard and unyielding. He wouldn't be getting out that way.

He looked up at the ceiling. It was grated. Hmm.

He could access it with his Pak if he wanted to but it looked just as easy to climb these wall panels. He thought he'd try it.

Yes, the rough texture and the seams between the panels made them pathetically easy to scale.

The ceiling grating was metal. It was lodged firmly into place and was too narrow to put a hand or even a finger or an antenna through.

Zim climbed up onto the ceiling and hung from it. Interesting. Not immediately useful, but interesting.

Now that he was up high, maybe he'd be able to do something with the screen...

He heard a giggle. "Huh?" he snapped.

There were two identical female Irkens at the door, looking up at him. "He's on the ceiling," one of them confided to the other.

"I know I'm on the ceiling." Zim climbed back down the wall to the floor. He strode over to confront the two ninnys and was brought up short when he found that he'd misjudged where the transparent door started. He had walked right into it.

"Hmm." Zim rubbed his forehead, frowning.

The twins laughed again. "You dare laugh at me?" Zim said. "Look at you! You're identical." Not even their eye color differed. "It's freakish."

"You're freakish!"

"Zim is not freakish- who are you?" Zim placed his palms against the glass. He knew where it was now. It was smooth and surprisingly warm. "How many of you are there?" This pair made up the fifth and sixth Irken he'd seen in this place. "You can't all be in league with that traitor." That was entirely too many traitors...

"Vaz is good to us," one twin said.

"He is a good leader," the other continued. "He's better than your stinky Tallest."

"Hey! No he isn't. Vaz is stupid," Zim insisted. "Let me out of here."

They laughed. "No! Why would we let you out?"

"Because I say so, that's why. I'm just going to escape if you don't let me out, you fools. Do you want me to escape angry? Or do you want to let me out, and spare yourselves my rage?"

They giggled again. "You can't get out of there."

"Just watch me." Zim had left the door for last in his inspection of the cell because it was probably the most reinforced... and yes, it was indeed. There were seams in it, but they were too tight for him to work with. "We go in there when we're bad," one twin said. "We can't get out, and there's two of us."

"Why do you talk like that?" Zim muttered.

"Like what?"

"All... puppety and stuff."

"Because it's creepy," one of them said.

"We think it's funny. You're all freaked out," the other said.

"I'm not freaked out, I just think it's annoying. What is wrong with you?"

"There's nothing wrong with us, you're the one who does the villain stuff, it's the same thing, isn't it?"

"What? Villain stuff? What are you talking about?"

One twin was viewing him with bright eyes. "You were just talking about your stupid wrath or whatever. You know on Vort they talk like that in cartoons for babies. No one really talks like that, right? Why do you talk like that, do you think it'll make you a more impressive Invader, or whatever? That's way more messed up than what we do. At least we know we're doing it."

Zim stared back at her. He was in no mood to be analyzed by a stupid little girl. "I will destroy you."

They both laughed.

"You laugh at me," he said, "but you won't laugh long! I'm a loyal Invader and you two are going to be executed for treason. Do you know the punishment for treason, hmm?"

"What is it?" one of them chirped.

"Slow explosion. How do you like that?"

"It sounds like fun. Weren't they going to erase you from the collective?'

Zim shook his head. "No. I'd remember something like that. You have it all wrong!"

They shrugged in unison. "Okay!"

The twin on the right grinned. "Rikk says that we're going to kill you in front of the Tallest to show them how dumb they are for letting you live. Or something. I think he's just mad at you. I think we should win you over. You'd be fun."

"We were technicians on the Massive," the other one said. "They kicked us out when Tallest Spork died. The new Tallest thought we were creepy."

Oh did they gee Zim wondered why. "I guess you blame me for that, huh?"

"Hmm?" She smiled at him. "Why would we? We blame the Tallest."

"Oh!" Zim backpedaled. "I have no idea why you'd blame me! I don't know why I would ever be to blame for something like that, but people say crazy things sometimes..."

But if he said it wasn't his fault... wasn't he implying it was the Tallest's fault? Oops. That could make trouble.

They were both staring at him. Huh. Their eyes were funny.

Zim felt his antennae sink to his scalp. He would not back away. He would not back away.

"We get blamed for stuff we didn't do, too," they said.

"Oh, do you?" Zim would not back away. "Huh."

"Well," one of them said brightly, and Zim could not tell which one nor did he really care anymore, "have fun escaping!"

They skipped off.

Zim sat down on the cot. "Whoof," he said. So far everyone in here was either angry with Zim, a crminal, or insane. Or a mutant. Or some combination of those things. He'd better escape fast.

Hey. Was the cot going to be useful?

It was made of a flat, short mattress, a frame- bolted to the floor- and various fabrics. There were springs in the mattress. He could uncoil a spring and poke it through the ceiling grate. Was there anything up there to poke at?

He climbed back up the wall and squinted through the ceiling grate. He couldn't see much. May as well start trying the spring thing and hope for the best.

* * *

If using Zim's signal interceptor had been a trifle odd sitting in his ship was horrific.

It smelled like him very strongly, for one thing. It didn't, she'd allow, necessarily smell bad. Just. Like him. It smelled like him. She kept thinking he was there next to her, but he wasn't.

Still... it was so hard to shake the thought that someone was there. She glanced over her shoulder.

"No!" She jumped. GIR yelped. He was sitting right there next to her.

When had he gotten into the ship? She had certainly not invited him, she hadn't even told him she was leaving!

Maybe he was trained or programmed to get in the ship whenever Zim got in it and he'd transferred that programming to her now that she'd taken over the base. Well, Tak was not going to require that he accompany her. Far from it. "Get out of the ship," she told him.

"Okay!"

He hopped out. She closed up the ship and started the computer systems up. She shuddered. She was used to scavenging things and dealing with the previously entered settings, and usually it seemed like nothing, just a tiny brief nuisance, nothing even worth mentioning, but this was different because she knew Zim. Or she thought she had.

No, she did. She did now. He wasn't going to pull any more human helpers out of thin air. He wasn't going to surprise her anymore. He hadn't chosen to get kidnapped, after all. That one didn't count.

She started the engine.

"Whee! We're going for a trip!"

"Augh!" She turned. GIR was just  _sitting_ there. "Get out!"

"But I always ride in the ship!"

As she'd suspected. "You are not coming on  _this_ trip! Now leave!"

GIR sighed. "All right... sheesh." He hopped out of the ship. She closed the bubble and locked it. Clearly she had been stalling for too long. She'd better go before GIR wound up in the ship again.

Now to see how this ship actually ran. She didn't have high hopes.

She started it up.

Okay. This wasn't as bad as she had feared, but it also was not good. The ship had speed but it was a little loose and slippery in the turns. And the stabilizers were odd.

She shouldn't have far to go in it, it would be enough to get her to her destination.

Like the signal interceptor (now tucked into her Pak, and she didn't intend to return it, there was nothing good Zim could be up to with it anyway), the ship was worn and much-repaired. It was so weakened and altered that she did not think even she could save it at this point. Zim had likely gotten it second-hand, as in, stolen it, and then run it into the ground. At least the life support worked.

She checked her tracker. The ship Zim was in was slower than the Voot. Her only trouble would be detection. The Voot had no cloaking devices.

Wait, so Zim had lived for over a year on a planet where he couldn't afford to be discovered, using a ship with no cloak the entire time... seriously, how was he still alive?

In any case, with no cloak she would have to follow the the kidnappers until they landed somewhere and then slip closer on foot if she didn't want to be caught. It shouldn't be too difficult. If anything got out of hand, she could call the authorities, but that felt a little... weak. She was very nearly an Invader. She shouldn't have to call anyone.

* * *

The tip of the spring snapped off against the metal. It bounced back and nearly caught Zim in the eye. He huffed. He opened his hand and let the rest of the worthless hunk of metal fall to the floor with a clang.

Now seemed like a good time for a break. He climbed down to the floor and sat down on the cot, rubbing a sore place on his head. He'd lost track of where all these bruises were from.

How was he supposed to get any work done with people coming after him for revenge all the time? First Tak, now Vaz. Ugh, Tak. She'd be at his base when he got back and then he'd have to deal with that.

Would she by any chance call the Tallest about Vaz for him? Probably not. She hated Zim. And she hadn't seemed to believe him about what had happened in the first place. He would assume she'd ignored the whole thing and was now merrily plundering his home.

Zim folded his arms over his chest. He was glad he'd reported Vaz to the authorities all those years ago. Clearly, a pathological criminal. Only... the authories hadn't stopped him well enough if he was back, had they? Zim should have stopped Vaz himself.

Yes. This time Zim would take care of it on his own. He didn't need to plan out how to do that before he escaped, though. Escape would come first. Then he would figure out what to do next.

He rubbed his temples. There had to be a way out of this room. And he, Zim, had to be equipped to find it. He just had to think more.

Oh, no. The twins were back.

They were standing at the door. Staring at him.

"What," he said.

"We like talking to you," they said. They seemed to drift and morph into each other. Zim was having trouble viewing them as separate beings.

"I don't like talking to you," he said.

"No one else here can talk to you," one of them said.

"Eet is bored with you."

"Rikk is mad at you."

"Skulk is weird."

"Vaz is too busy for you."

"Bri wants to do tests on you."

"So now we're in charge of talking to you!"

Bri. So there was at least one more traitorous Irken around here that Zim hadn't seen yet. He hoped he would not see Bri. Anyway... "You won't be in charge of talking to me for long! Because I'm going to be out of here!"

"Of course," they said. "Good luck. We're going to land soon. We're going to go eat."

Zim frowned. "But you have a cafeteria." A whole cafeteria all to themselves. That was what Vaz had said. "You don't need to go eat."

"We're getting a special treat."

"Because we caught you."

Oh, right, Vaz had said. Blech.

"You're staying here," the twins said. "Skulk is gonna watch you."

"He doesn't talk, so if you need something, tell us now."

"We're the only people who will get you what you need. Except maybe Vaz. You won't be seeing him, though. He's busy."

"Busy taking you out for treats," Zim snapped. "I don't need anything. You can go."

"You sure? We won't be back for a while."

"Yes, I'm sure! Go!" Zim waved them off.

In reality he was beginning to be hungry, but he didn't want food badly enough to prolong this encounter. He probably had something to eat in his Pak anyway.

"Okay." "If you're sure!"

They skipped off.

Zim sighed and shook his head.

He checked his Pak. He didn't actually have any food.

It was hard to tell how much time was passing in here. Nothing was happening. No one else was around.

He looked up at the TV screen. He had not been able to break it. Maybe he should see if anything good was on...

No, Zim was not going to give up and watch TV!

* * *

Finally, the kidnappers had come to a stop. It was show time.

They'd docked in a little cafe in the middle of nowhere. Tak touched down behind them, just another patron.

She sat and watched.

Six Irkens streamed out of the ship and into the cafe. Six of them. That wasn't too many, but it was more than was ideal.

She recognized Vaz from the pictures she'd just looked up online. So it was true.

Interesting. She wondered how he'd won himself so many followers.

They had probably left guards behind, too. They weren't  _too_ concerned about security if Vaz wasn't concealing his appearance and they were going on pleasure trips, but there still were probably guards.

She cracked her knuckles. She'd look out for them.

Getting into the ship was fairly easy. Not as easy as most ships were to get into, but fairly easy.

The layout inside was odd. Winding hallways. Judging from the beige color scheme, this was not an Irken ship. Or a Vortian ship.

It seemed to be empty in here.

If there were guards, they would be near the important stuff. Presumably, 'important stuff' included their prisoner, whom she happened to have a tracker on.

She followed the tracking data down one hall, then another. She froze. She saw a glimpse of someone up ahead. Zim was somewhere up there, but the person she saw was much too big to be him, so yes, there was a guard.

Hmm. Tak hadn't done any hand to hand fighting in a while. This might turn interesting.

She snuck closer.

"Hnh!" the guard grunted. "Who's there?"

Spotted already? She paused. Generally she tried to avoid using violence without being provoked, simply because there was always a risk involved. She hadn't been planning to go out of her way to pick a fight.

Ah, whatever. She ran closer.

The huge, hulking Irken standing in front of the cell threw a blow at her. He was so slow. Not experienced at all with combat, she'd guess. Size alone didn't make a good fighter.

She ducked around the blow and used its momentum to flip the man onto the floor. She leaned one foot on the back of his neck, using her weight to pull him down while she sent a jamming signal to his Pak. He'd be out for a while now.

She was almost out of breath. What a fun little diversion.

She looked up. Zim was standing there. His hands were pressed against the glass wall to his cell.

"Tak!" He stared at her. "You came to rescue me?"

To rescue him?

To... rescue him.

To rescue  _him._

"Ah-" She had not even considered that he might think that.

Tak was rarely at a loss for words, but she was now... how could he be so deluded? She hated him. Yes, she had shown up and knocked out the guard right in front of him, but... but... she'd just knocked out the guard because she had thought he might get in her way! "No! Why would I ever rescue you?"

"Oh, but... I thought... no?"

"No!"

Zim looked just a little bit uncomfortable. Good. She'd leave him to stew while she searched the ship for information.

She'd have to move quickly. There could, in fact, should be an alarm to notify the crew that she'd broken in. Just because she'd made short work of the guard didn't mean she could fend off six people at once.

Unfortunately, nothing had been left out. Nothing useful to Tak had been left out, anyway. There were plenty of dirty dishes and TV remotes and items of garbage.

Someone here was an aspiring artist of some kind, maybe with an eye towards working in propaganda. This person's work did not appeal to Tak. She hid the sketchbook she had found under a nearby couch. It was petty, but they were traitors.

There was absolutely no evidence here she could give to the Tallest. Not even on the computers for the command center. Nothing. They must keep all their plans in their notepads in their Paks, if they kept files of them at all. The only things she could find out were that the ship was set on a route to the Massive, which was highly suspect, and there was another way out of the ship towards the back, which could be very useful information if the crew returned before she left.

She stopped by Zim's cell. He looked out at her with large, glistening eyes. She thought she might smack him if he wasn't behind that glass. He was so smackably pathetic. And though he had clearly not planned to get himself kidnapped and mess up Tak's day, she somehow couldn't see this happening to anyone else but him.

She noticed a jamming device stuck to the wall of his cell. That would prevent him from calling anyone for help. She would guess that they were semi-serious about this whatever-they-were-doing, but not incredibly competent.

"Tak, let me out," he said.

"No."

"Please?"

Hm, it wasn't unpleasant to be begged by an enemy. "No," she said.

"Tak! Come on!" He drummed his foot on the floor. "I have to get back to Earth! The Tallest won't be happy, you know. I'll tell them everything."

She scratched her chin. "Get down on your knees."

His eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

She shouldn't spend too much more time here, she should leave- but this was fun. "Get down on your knees and beg me to let you out. I'd like to see that."

He flushed pink and bared his teeth. But. He was doing it. He was getting down on the floor on his knees. He was really doing it! He was kneeling on the floor! His hands were clasped in supplication!

"Please," he said, voice strained, "let me out of this cell so I can go back to conquering the filthy Earth, Tak."

Tak started to cackle. The laughter irresistably bubbled up from her squeedly-spooch, she couldn't hold it in if she tried.

Zim quivered. "Let me out of this cell right now!"

"Whatever happened to 'please'?"

"Pleeeeease!" he snapped.

"Wiggle your antennae in the Tallest salute!"

"No! Blasphemy!"

"Just do it! Do you want your horrible, fake mission, Zim, or do you want to stay in that cell and rot? Salute me!"

He saluted. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. She'd solicited praise from people under the influence of her psi implant sometimes, for sport, but this was different. Zim knew what he was doing and that he did not want to do it. "Now apologize for ruining my life."

"I am sorry that I ruined your horrible life and made you not an Invader!"

She rapped on the door to his cell. "Once more, with feeling!"

He spread his arms out wide, face turning blotchy with rage. "I am sorry! What else do you want from me?"

"Hmm-"

She heard a sound. They were coming back.

She had not gotten any information out of him whatsoever. Now she was going to have to let him out of his cell so she could get to real business. Irony.

She quickly hacked the door open. He bounced over the threshold into freedom. "Yes!"

She grabbed his collar. He was preparing to dart away. "Hey!"

She pressed her hand over his mouth and dragged him out towards the back exit.

Zim grunted and wriggled in her grip. "You will shut up," she hissed. "Do you want to get recaptured?"

He was so close to her. She could feel his shoulderblades. She hadn't bargained for this!

They'd made it to the parking lot without being intercepted. She threw him into the Voot Cruiser and got in beside him. "You stole my ship!" he screamed.

"Hush!" She started the engines. He smacked her hand away. "Excuse me? How dare you!"

"You're not even flying it right!" he snapped. He hit an unlabeled button that she had thought was extraneous.

The ship shot into the sky, driving her back into the seat.

Once out of orbit, Zim turned off the turbo engine.

"What was that?" Tak said, when she had found her voice.

Zim didn't look entirely comfortable either. Good. That was horrible. No one's ship should do that. "I installed it to compensate for-" He waved his hand. "It's not important now." He reached for the controls. She slapped his hand. He slapped her hand.

That went on for a few minutes until Tak tired of it and grabbed Zim's wrist to restrain him.

He scowled at her.

"What are you doing, Zim?" she asked.

"I am driving  _my_ ship,  _Tak."_

"And where do you think you're going?"

"Home! Where else?"

"I see." She peered into his mulish little face. His wrist was tense and knobbly in her hand. And warm. Tak did not, as a rule, touch others. This was not a usual thing for her. "You understand that something untoward is going on here, don't you?"

"Yes!" Zim stared at her. "They kidnapped me and stuck me in a box! They're obviously up to something!"

How was she supposed to know he was able to recognize that fact? He so often didn't show that he was cognizant of anything. "What did you hear when you were on that ship? What were they planning to do with you?"

His eyes narrowed to slits. "Let go of my hand."

"Only if you don't go for the controls. I want to talk to you first."

"Fine. But only for a few seconds. Then I am ejecting you from my ship and returning to my vital Earth mission."

Sure he was.

She let go of him. He pulled away, folding his arms over his chest and looking away with a sniff. "What I heard is none of your business! I'll be reporting all of it to the Tallest."

Tak's jaw clenched. There was no way she had come all the way out here to lose her shot at benefiting from the situation- and at even being the first to report. Zim was simply not going to be allowed to do that.

She might be able to easily get what she wanted by manipulating him. He was so painfully gullible. "But what if," she said, "the danger to the Tallest is too imminent? We should figure that out. Maybe we need to save them!"

Zim put a hand to his cheek, eyes wide. He'd bought it. Wow. Just like that. "You think-" He sputtered. "I think I can figure that out on my own!"

"Just tell me what happened!"

"No! You're not authorized to know the details of what happens to me.."

"Right, of course." She rubbed her temples. She could always beat it out of him. She did not remember Zim being very talkative while in pain, though. Screamy, but not talkative. "You know-" She doubted an appeal to loyalty would have much of an effect on him but she might as well try it. "The Tallest might die, you know. We don't have enough of a detailed warning for them to ensure their safety." She had no idea whether or not that was really true.

Zim tipped his head back, frowning. He paled slightly. "Die? The Almighty Tallest? They didn't seem that aggressive... you think those people will kill the Almighty Tallest?"

"What else would they be doing, Zim? Vaz was plotting to overthrow the Empire and take over back when he was first arrested, and Tallests do not abdicate. Besides, they were aggressive enough to abduct you."

Zim wrung his hands. "But- the Tallest can take care of themselves. They've beaten the Resisty. And they want me on Earth where I am! That's my job." He winced slightly. Could he hear how weaselly he sounded? "I'm sure a call to warn them will be enough. Hey, why should I listen to you anyway? You're evil!"

She smirked despite herself. "Thank you kindly, Zim."

"That wasn't a compliment! You're so stupid!"

She laughed and shook her head. "Pleasantries aside. The Tallest. What are you going to warn them about? All we know is that some kind of group of traitors is wandering around kidnapping exiled freaks. Also, the Resisty are stupid."

"Ha, yeah, they are." Zim folded his arms over his chest. "But anyway. They have spies for that. That should be enough information. Or are you suggesting that you and I know better than the  _entire_ surveillance network? Hmmm?"

She folded her hands in her lap. "I'm not implying anything." If she was, Zim would tattle on her.

Zim scratched his cheek. There was a weird gleam in his eyes. "Of course- I guess we  _are_ Invaders. Well, I am, anyway. But you don't need to be as amazing as me to stop a stupid little band of... stupid people. The spy network is fine!"

"Right, whatever. Of course, they haven't caught this band yet," she pointed out. "And their security is hardly the best. Isn't it possible something slipped through?"

"Yes, but- if I tell them what's going on-"

"Do you read the news, Zim?"

"No! I'm too busy!" He looked away and muttered something under his breath.

"Did you know that Irkens are almost never investigated because we're all supposed to be loyal?"

"I reported Vaz when he first started making trouble," Zim volunteered, suddenly, out of nowhere.

"Did you." In his mind he had, no doubt.

Zim nodded. His little pointed jaw stuck out forward. "I called the authorities. And they arrested him. But they failed to execute him and now he's my problem again."

"They failed to execute him because everyone was a bit preoccupied when Tallest Miyuki died," she pointed out.

"Uh huh." Zim turned away.

That had gone right over his head, hadn't it?

Now what was Tak going to do? She couldn't just take Zim home. That would be stupid. She couldn't hand him back to the kidnappers he clearly deserved to be with, because whatever they wanted him for could pose a danger to the Tallest. Maybe she'd leave him on an asteroid. Although, if she continued to tail them, she supposed she could find something out by handing him back to he kidnappers... but no, they would then know about her and know she was following them. More than they did already, anyway. The only way that could work was if Zim willingly agreed to go off on his own and return to them under the pretense that Tak had never been there, which wasn't likely to happen.

"That was nothing to do with me," he said, bringing her out of her reverie.

"What was nothing to do with you?"

"Miyuki, I didn't- there was an accident. All I ever did was invent a valuable contribution to the Irken war machine, okay?"

"Sure."

"I know you love it when everything's my fault, but I will not apologize for being an incredible inventor," Zim said.

"You're repulsive."

He sounded distracted. "Huh. Yeah. I know."

He was definitely not listening.

She tapped her foot against the floor of the cruiser. It seemed like, for whatever crazy reason, he actually wanted to talk to her. They'd had quite a conversation so far. Just not about what Tak wanted to hear. She believed it would be possible to steer him into saying things Tak did want to hear, if she let him talk long enough. He would probably reveal everything he knew about the group of traitors on the way back to Earth.

But she couldn't let him go back to Earth. Perhaps she could get him to go somewhere else. At least for now.

Tak studied Zim out of the corner of her eye, carefully, so he wouldn't notice. He sat turned away from her with his cheek in his hand.

He started to yawn and tried to repress it.

Hmm. She had an idea. "You know, a small, cramped Voot cruiser is no place to hold a conversation. Why don't we stop somewhere and get a coffee?"

"Oh I don't drink coffee," he said.

What kind of freak didn't drink coffee? "A soda, then."

"No, I have to get home."

Why was he so difficult? It was killing her to have to offer him courtesy at all. "It will only take fifteen minutes. I'll pay."

Zim shifted in his seat. "No."

She scowled out at the stars. "Are you  _sure?"_

"Yes. I'm sure."

Now what? She fiddled with the psi implant. Too bad it didn't work on Irkens.

Zim spoke up again. "Could we get food?"

"Yes. Fine. Food. Drink. Whatever."

He squirmed. "I can't. I have to get back. A burger? Can I get a burger?"

"What? Yes, Zim, you can order whatever you want."

"And fries?"

"Yes! You're a grown man, you can eat whatever you want! Do you want to stop or not?"

He bit his lip. "Just for a few minutes, though, right?"

"Right. All right. There's a place just up ahead."

* * *

He'd gotten this massive double cheeseburger and fries and it cost her $10 why had she told him he could order whatever he wanted? What kind of place charged $10 for a burger?

He was already halfway through it. Pig.

She sipped on her half-caf mocha soy latte. It was too hot. And it was nowhere near as good as Foodcourtia coffee.

She would have to approach the subject of Vaz's awful little band again, but how?

Before she could think of a good way to broach the subject, Zim spoke up all on his own. "There were these creepy twins there. Two of them. Twins. Creepy. They finished each other's sentences. Told me they did it on purpose." He talked with his mouth full. Disgusting. "That's insane, isn't it?"

"Yes, insane," she said. "Though not as insane as working for a traitor to the Empire."

"Yeah! Yeah, they're all nutty." He slurped on his soda. "Oh, well."

She took another sip. Maybe he was just going to eventually tell her everything out of boredom. She could use a break like that.

He finished off the burger and started on the fries. He ate them plain. No ketchup? What was he, a barbarian?

He'd taken the pickles off the burger too. Little snot.

"Oh, hey, get this," he said. "They want me to join them! What the? I mean, why would I ever even consider that? Don't they know who I am? I mean, you're horrible, but even you would never say anything so insulting to Zim!"

"Did they really want you to join them?" she said. "Truthfully?"

"The twins practically begged me!"

"Like you begged me to let you out of your cell earlier today?" It just kind of slipped out.

Zim raised an eyebrow at her. "What? When?"

Seriously?

He kept going. "Then they said I was going be killed or something. Ridiculous."

"Did Vaz himself say anything to you?"

Zim thoughtfully looked up at the ceiling, slowly chewing his fries. "He said he wanted me alive and not to harm me. Then he said we were going somewhere. And that I would like it." He snorted. "Obviously psychological torture."

She didn't see what part of that constituted torture, but it was interesting. Somewhere Zim wanted to be, hm? "I intercepted some of their conversation," she said.

"Huh, really? Who were they calling?"

"Well, they weren't exactly calling anyone, it was a Pak record."

"Really." Zim squinted at her. "That takes classified equipment, Tak."

She stared him down. She could not resist- "I used your signal intercepter, Zim. I stole it."

He said nothing for a minute, and then- "I want that back!"

"No. I'm confiscating it!"

He laughed. "Whatever! I'll make a new one. I'm an Invader. I'm allowed to have them, you know. That one was old anyway." He sucked down some soda.

He hadn't even blinked. She shook her head.

She knew what she suspected. Should she bounce it off him to see what he said?

She sipped her latte and observed Zim for a little bit. He was slowly making his way through the fries. At first, he had seemed oblivious to his surroundings, but now she was noticing occasional faint tremors of his antennae and slight motions of his head that suggested he was noticing movements in the restaurant in his peripheral vision, like she was.

He was glancing occasionally at a table in the corner. Two people were sitting there, a mother and child. Tak was assuming that was the relationship, anyway. They were being affectionate in the way parents typically were with children.

Zim winced a bit as the mother placed a kiss on her infant.

"Is there something unsual about them, Zim?" she asked him.

"The child must be so germy," he muttered. "Disgusting."

That was not what she had expected him to say. Tak frowned. She had thought, not so very long ago, that she understood Zim completely and could predict his every move. Then he had started behaving bizarrely from the moment she met him. Then he had turned the tables and beaten her. But she understood him now. She certainly did. Mostly. About 95%. The remaining 5% of him was nothing too important, right?

He looked down, picking at his fries. He seemed to be losing his appitite. He should be by now, the burger had been the size of his head. "So, Tak."

"Yes?"

He tapped his eyebrow. "What's, uh... this thing?"

"What thing? There's nothing on your head. Or inside it."

He snorted. "I know that! I meant, the thing on you."

What thing? There was nothing on Tak's- oh, wait.

She touched her psi implant. "Er, this?"

"Yes! What is it used for? Why do you have it?" He leaned forward. "Is it a brainpower boosting device? Is that how you manage it?"

She had not anticipated that he would even notice such things about her appearance. "Actually, it provides a certain amount of mind control over lesser beings."

His jaw dropped. Had he never seen her using it? "You're kidding. You've gotta be kidding me! Where did you get that?" he demanded.

"Oh, I... built it," she said, running one finger along the inside of the curl of her left antenna.

"You! You built it? You're lying!" He looked and sounded so... jealous. Jealous of Tak. Of what she had and could do. No one had ever been jealous of Tak before. Why, that was as good as an admission that Tak was better than Zim.

"No, it was really very simple," she said, leaning back in her seat. "I won't bore you with the details."

Zim snorted and flicked one antenna. He had nice antennae, thick and straight and dark, with smooth tapering tips. None of those nicks or dents or crinkles other people had in their antennae.

She shook herself. Ew. This was Zim. He was disgusting. He did not have- of course, someone's physical features had nothing to do with whether or not they were awful, and Zim could have a handsome set of antennae while still being a moron, and if she noticed, she didn't...

Oh, forget it!

She looked away, sipping her latte. He was so dumb. What a dumb, stupid idiot.

"Well, anyway," he huffed. "I still don't think the Tallest are in danger and when we're done here I'm going home!"

"How do you know for certain that they aren't in danger?"

He growled to himself and stuffed a fry in his mouth.

She sipped her latte. "You asked a question of me. Now I'm going to ask a question of you."

"Maybe I won't answer it. I don't have to answer your questions."

"Why don't you drink coffee?" It was bugging her. "Can you not handle the taste?"

"It gives me heartburn."

"Oh." That was... ordinary.

"I used to drink tons of coffee," he mumbled. "I didn't get so sick so easily before I..." He glared at her. "You're trying to trick me into revealing my weaknesses, aren't you?"

"No, I just thought not drinking coffee was stupid."

"Oh. It is stupid."

How had they gotten so far from the subject of work? They were just talking about nothing now.

Tak didn't think she'd ever talked about nothing with someone before. It was an odd feeling. Pointless but faintly amusing. Definitely something she could do without, however.

"I'm done, do you want this?"

Huh? He was shoving his food at her. No, she did not want his cold greasy fries or his ketchuppy pickles.

"No thank you," she growled. "Get that filth out of my face."

"Hm?" He looked down at the food. "I wasn't asking you!"

"There's no one else here."

He looked tense. "Well, my SIR unit- I mean-"

"GIR usually finishes your food. Is that what you're saying?"

"Just forget it!"

"I see."

Zim picked up a napkin and starting cleaning his face and hands with it. He wouldn't meet Tak's eyes.

"I believe they were going to take you to the Massive," she said.

He looked up at her. "Huh?" He'd scrubbed his face raw.

"I think they were going to take you to the Tallest for some kind of... demonstration."

He stared off into the middle distance. "The Tallest... were they going to execute us all together? I would never allow that!"

"Unfortunately we just don't know. If only you'd heard more." If only he'd gotten information out of them and not been an idiot.

"I'm sure everything will be fine."

"It's too bad we don't really have enough information to know either way. Or even tell the Tallest when to expect them."

Zim's fingertips went to his mouth. He grimaced. She wondered if he bit his nails when he was alone. He looked as if he wanted to bite them now.

She realized he hadn't taken off his gloves to eat. Too lazy? Too distracted? Too dedicated to maintaining his image? Probably just too dense.

"Maybe we could... maybe I could follow them," he mumbled.

"We'll never find them again. Well, I might, you won't. I have excellent tracking skills."

"Those twins are in the directory. They worked for the Tallest. I could call them and pretend I wanted to join them. And then overthrow them from the inside!"

Tak tried to look nonchalant. This was more or less exactly what she'd wanted Zim to do. And now he was deciding to do it on his own. Of course... "They're no longer in the directory if they're traitors."

"Uh, you can't just wipe yourself from the directory."

Tak squinted at him. In broad strokes, his was not a bad plan, overall. The one problem with it was obvious. "How would you overthrow them from the inside, exactly?" If he did succeed, she would once again be stuck without benefiting from this situation. She would just make sure that he wouldn't succeed before allowing him to go forward.

"I would get them to trust me and then I would crush them," he said, with a punctuating quiver of his tiny fist. "It would be easy. I think I'll do it." Okay, that was a not an actual plan, that would not work, she had nothing to worry about.

He stood up. "Thanks for the food, Tak. I must be off to save the Tallest from certain destruction."

"All right. You know they'll probably kill you. I'll be here to laugh at your demise."

"I won't let them kill me."

She watched as he walked past her towards the door. "I could ensure that they don't, you know."

He turned and glared back at her. "What's that?"

"We could work together." She smiled at him.

The Tallest would never believe he'd accomplished anything. If he went for it, Zim would be thrown around inside their weird little cult while Tak supervised him and made sure the group never reached the Tallest. Then she would be rewarded and Zim would be sent back to his exile.

That would happen either way, but it would be easier if he willingly cooperated.

Zim scowled at her. "Together?"

"For the safety of the Tallest. I would be there to keep anything horrible from happening in case this group overpowers you. Seven against one, Zim? I don't like your odds."

"Never. You threw me out of my base and stole my ship!"

"I bought you lunch," she said.

He scowled and rocked back and forth. "Let's talk about this outside."

Outside, he ambled around in the parking lot with no seeming further interest in talking. She followed him as he finally made his way back to the Voot Cruiser.

"You'll ally yourself with little human children but not with me?" she said with a raise of her eyebrow. "If I assigned any value to your opinion I'd be insulted."

Zim leaned against the side of the ship, peering at her. "Whatever you're after, Tak, you're not gonna get it from me."

"All I want is to do the duty of a loyal Irken citizen and ensure the safety of my Tallest. If you don't want the help I'll be on my way."

"Okay."

"Back to your base."

Zim drummed his fingers on the side of the ship.

"Think about it," she said. "I'm evil, scheming... correct?"

"Oh, so correct..."

Her hands clasped together. "Wouldn't you prefer that I be nearby, where you can keep an eye on me, and not dismantling your life's work on Earth?" An idea. "You left an evil plan out in your lab, you know. I didn't touch it. Yet."

His eyes got very big. He shook his head. "Ha! If you destroy that plan, I'll just make a new one. Besides, I don't need your help, Tak. What would you be helping with?"

"I would just step in and take care of things if anything went wrong. Consider me a backup. Please tell me you don't honestly believe you're infallible. I've already saved you once, if you haven't noticed!"

Zim sputtered. "You're not a real Invader!"

"Neither are you!"

He hopped into the ship. She hopped in next to him. He growled.

She honestly didn't need to pester him into this, she would just follow him if he didn't agree to go along with her. Things would be easier if he went along, but not impossible if he didn't. With that in mind, this little fight was almost enjoyable. If he held firm and resisted her, it would be his loss and she had nothing to lose either way. "What do you say, Zim? Go in there alone and possibly never come out again or admit that you _need_  me?"

"I don't have to listen to this. I'm going to call them. Right now."

He turned on the ship's computer and started flipping through files.

As he pawed through the files she noticed his hand starting to tremble.

He pulled away and smoothed back his antennae. "Okay." He took a deep breath.

"Yes?" she purred.

"If I agree to this, which I'm not saying I will, we're going to need some rules."

He was going to go for it. She bit her lip with glee. "Such as?"

"Get out of my house!"

"I'm lightyears away from your base right now, Zim."

He slammed his hand down on the control panel. "You know what I mean!"

"All right, let's say I vacate your base." She could break that promise later if she wanted to. "In return..." In return what? Was there anything he had or could do for her that had any value?

Wait. Actually, there was. "You get my ship back from that human!"

"What ship! Oh, oh, that," he said. He waved his hand. "Yes, gladly. I hate that he has that thing! Is that all?"

She looked him over. This might go very well for her after all. Everything had looked to be going south for a few seconds there, but now she was much better satisfied. "Yes. I think that will do."

He nodded. She nodded. He turned back to the directory. "Wait," he said.

"What now, Zim?"

"I want another meal afterwards."

Seriously? "Another burger?"

"Nachos!"

"Okay, yes, all right, Zim, you bust the conspiracy ring and I'll buy you a plate of nachos. Now call them."

He nodded. He started flipping through names. "There. These are them."

"Good," she said.

"Yeah," he said. "Good."

His hands still shook.

Hmm. What if he really did get killed and never gave her any useful information first? Tak called up the mental database of the items in her Pak. "I have a device you can use to contact me." That way he could fill her in on things before getting into mortal danger, hopefully.

He looked up at her. His eyes were wide and wistful. She frowned. Gross. "Here." She pulled out the communicator and handed it to him. He tucked it into his Pak. "That should call my Pak without alerting anyone. And it should get through their jamming device."

"Right." He nodded.

"If you find out anything the Tallest need to know you can relay it to me."

"Right."

They both sat in awkward silence for a moment.

"Are you going to call them?"

"Yes! Yes, right away." He reached for the directory. His hands weren't shaking anymore.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3: Why Zim Needs No One And Doesn't Like Tak At All**

Vaz did not get "angry", just "disappointed." Supposedly. He was still a leader, and they had seen too many technicians thrown out of airlocks not to know how to be scarce when a leader was experiencing difficulties.

Ka had misplaced her drawing book and she searched the space for it while Hik looked over her notes.

"I could have told Vaz we should have been the ones watching him," she said from underneath the desk.

"It's not his fault. Zim's a quarter of his size and he seemed so stupid." She tapped the stylus aimlessly against the side of the tablet. "Who could've seen this coming? I didn't think he could open the door or knock out Skulk either."

"Yeah, that's true, I guess..."

"I don't think your book's under there."

"Where is it, then?"

"You probably left it out by the TV."

"Yeah, probably. I guess I'll get it later." She joined Hik on the bench. "What are we going to do now, do you think?"

"Probably the same thing we were going to do." Whatever that was. Vaz never revealed any more of a plan than they needed to know at any given moment. "Just less flashy without, you know, public enemy number one."

"Yeah..." She jumped. "Hey, I'm getting a call."

Hik shoved her. "You are not. Get out!"

"I am too!"

"Who is it?"

"I don't know!"

She made the connection. They both gasped.

Zim scowled at them from the hologram projection. "Hello. You. Copy. Things." He could only see Ka but he must suspect Hik was there. He'd only ever seen them together. "This is Invader ZIM."

"Well," Hik said. "You escaped after all. Congratulations."

"Why, yes. Yes, I did. You should never have doubted me!" Zim rubbed the inside corner of his eye. He looked a little queasy. "But it was... more difficult than I expected. I, er... I really am impressed. By your little, um, group. I'd like to come back. Now that you know who's in charge here, you see."

Hik never knew or cared to know what quirk of fate (or glitch in the smeeting system) had given her an identical copy. Ka had simply always been there. By now she knew almost everything that her copy did or felt. They didn't have to confer on anything. They both spoke up at the same time. "Good for you!"

Zim visibly tensed up. "Yeah, thanks."

They took turns speaking. "We'll be there to get you right away." "Just sit tight. Send us your coordinates." "Thanks!" "Bye."

"Ugh- bye."

He disconnected.

They would talk to Vaz first but they knew he would send them. Eet's bloodlust was up now, she shouldn't be going on any capture missions if the target was supposed to come back alive.

"Well," Hik said. "That's interesting. I wonder what his plan is?" Because he obviously had one. It couldn't have been more clear that he didn't want to join them at all. Or see them again. Or talk to them.

They stood up and dusted themselves off. Time to talk to Vaz.

* * *

Zim stood out in the middle of the empty parking lot. Tak watched from inside the restaurant.

Did he have to look like that? Like he was a small animal being led off to be shot? How pathetic.

She knocked back the last little bit of her latte. It was cold.

The kidnapper's ship was landing over there. Zim tossed a desperate glance back at her. Great. Thanks. Yes, she did want her presence here to be given away to these people. How had he guessed?

Two Irkens got out of the ship. They were identical. They must be the twins that had gotten Zim all riled up. Tak did not see the problem. Genetic flukes like that did happen. A pair of identical Irkens was hardly more concerning than, say, Zim. Those two were barely any more identical than the Tallest for Pete's sake. The only difference was that this pair had the same eye color.

They talked for a little while. Tak couldn't hear them from where she was sitting.

After speaking, they all piled into the ship and took off.

And that was Tak's part done for the time being. Now she was free until he contacted her, and she had a ship she could use as she wished. She would have to stay reasonably near the group, of course, but she should have a lot of room to work with.

She rubbed her hands together. She should be able to think of something to do with that.

* * *

There was no time to start like the present. Zim did not like these Irkens, and he did not want to speak with them, but they were the enemy and he had a duty to trick them into giving him information. And trick them he would.

"So," he said. "Your plan to take down the Tallest must be spectacular! What is it?"

They looked over their shoulders at him, at the same time, smirking at the same time. He shuddered. They were flanking him on each side, leading him by the arms. Their hands were warm. Gross.

"You're smart," they said. "I bet you can come up with it all on your own. When you figure it out, let us know."

"Ha! I will."

Of course all of Zim's plans were one-person plans (with some possible slight assistance from GIR, his assistant). Not plans for a group of seven. What did you even do with that many Irkens?

They were leading him down the hall. They were leading him to the cells. "Where are you taking me?" he demanded.

"Here," they said, shoving him into the open cell.

He turned to face them as the door slammed shut a few inches from his eyes. "Hey! What is this? I came to you willingly and you imprison me like a- prisoner?"

They pouted at him. "Your escape was a pain. Everyone's mad at you. If we let you run around free, someone would probably bash your face in. You don't want that, do you?"

"Of course not!"

"Then you'll have to stay there. Sorry!"

They flounced off. They were not even a little bit sorry.

Zim flopped down on the cot. "Stupid freaky copy twins," he muttered.

Nothing had changed about the room since he'd left it. He saw no point in looking for weak points now anyway, since the plan was to stay here and be ingratiating..

What a pain. He wasn't supposed to have to do this stuff. He was an Invader, not a guard or a spy.

There was no one here to give him information or anything, either. They should have let him be free so he could search the ship, find out about their plan and stop them for once and for all so he could go home.

At least with him in charge he knew things would get done properly. Honestly this job was so beneath him. And every minute he was here the Earth mission was at a standstill. It was hard to find anything good about this situation whatsoever. Zim would just have to get through it the best that he could.

There was at least one thing to be glad about- this cell did not seem to have any security cameras in it.

He took off one glove and started chewing his nails. His hands tasted salty. He licked the inside of his palm. It smelled like himself. Like the base or the Voot Cruiser, like home.

He felt sluggish. Sluggish enough that it was hard to think as swiftly as usual. He shouldn't have eaten all that food.

Stopping for food at all had maybe not been strictly necessary. He hadn't had anything but dry ration sticks for months, was all. And there was no edible meat to be had on Earth. And Tak had paid for it. And she was going to get him nachos when he was done here. Usually all he got for a job well done was a sense of victory. You couldn't eat victory.

Tak's recent behavior was surprising. It seemed that even a selfish liar like her could put her own goals aside for the good of the Tallest. Zim didn't see how any of this could benefit her. It wasn't like the Tallest were going to reward her for any of this. Zim was doing all the work, and besides, the Tallest only rewarded people they liked. Like Zim.

That was a surprising amount of loyalty from someone who had ignored the Tallest's mission assignments and tried to butt into Operation Impending Doom II. Zim was  _almost_ impressed a little bit. Almost! Except he wasn't, because Zim did not impress easily.

Of course, the mission-hijacking thing might even be understandable if Tak was better than the assigned Invader. If she had gone to, say, Skutch's planet, Zim would understand. But she had come to Zim's planet. What kind of fool did that? Did Tak really think of herself that highly?

"Ha!" he said aloud. He tried to picture anyone being better than him. Smarter. Faster. Stronger.

That would be an incredible Irken, all right, but he didn't think it was possible. Although Tak did smell nice, and she was a more-than-decent fighter. Technologically skilled as well, though not so skilled as Zim, of course. And her plans were really quite-

"Ow!"

He had bitten his nails to the quick. He sat up straight and tugged his glove back on. He felt his face. It was warm. Hmm. That didn't usually happen.

Never mind about all that. Never mind Tak now.

He viewed the TV screen up in the corner. He had tried and failed to break the screen or pull the guts out of it. If he managed to get it open, maybe he could use the insides and the useful bits and pieces he kept in his Pak to construct something. But they came to check on him fairly often. They'd notice.

Also, he wasn't supposed to be escaping. He was staying here. And learning things. But it was a good idea to have an escape plan anyway, right? He couldn't rely on Tak to really help him escape if things went wrong and not just double cross him somehow.

Speaking of Tak. Was Tak going to call him first or was he going to call her first? Maybe he should call her, just to make sure the doohickey she'd given him to call her in private with worked. Without being blocked or intercepted.

He swung his legs over the side of the cot and kicked them back and forth. No one was here now, so now was as good a time as any.

Or was someone there? If someone saw him talking to Tak they would just confiscate the radio.

The glass door-wall-window-thing was clouded over. He didn't see anyone outside, but of course, he couldn't see the outside at all. He walked up to the wall and pressed his hand against it.

The fog cleared. Huh! He hadn't expected to actually have control of that. It was possible that this room hadn't been originally intended as a cell. It was all nice and stuff, like a weird guest room with most of the furniture taken out.

That obnoxious girl who'd kidnapped him was sitting outside playing a handheld game. She looked up.

"Hi."

He swallowed his irritation. If he was being spied on, he might as well get some information out of her in return. "Hello. Uh, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot." When you  _shot me in the-_ no, that wouldn't get him anywhere.

"Hmm," she said. "Yeah, I guess. No offense, but I expected something kinda special, ya know? 'Ooh, it's that guy that ruins everything and the Tallest can't control him at all!' But so far you're just... kinda boring."

No offense? That was an insult! Saying 'no offense' didn't make that not an insult.

Zim was having trouble coming up with a reply that was not a much more vicious and blistering insult.

"I mean," she said, "I was in animal control. I tamed slorbeasts. It was intense. I thought you'd at least throw a couple punches." She looked genuinely upset. "I was looking forward to this, okay? And I didn't think I'd be stuck guarding you either. I hate guarding!"

Oh, wow! Zim was just so sorry about that! Buh, what was her problem? "I can destroy you whenever I feel like it!"

"Okay. Why didn't you:?"

"Because-" He pounded on the wall with his fist. "Let me out and I'll show you how I destroy inferiors!"

She put the game device back in her Pak. She stood up. "Oh, yeah? You wanna go? You wanna do this?"

"Yes, I wanna do this! Open this cell. I'll make you wish I was never decanted!"

"What are you freaks doin'?"

That guy with the robot arm had appeared. Mik or whatever his name was.

He looked at Zim with unadulterated hatred. Oh, Zim was so sorry to be infringing on this guy's space, here in his  _cell._

Zim made the face shapes that the elementary skool children used to show disrespect. Tick or whatever his name was looked properly disgruntled. "Eet, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to beat him up," the girl said. Eet, that was her name. That was a stupid name. Now, Stink or Sneakyonfoota, those were honorable names.

"I'd love to see that but he's gotta stay in there. Vaz said. If he gets out, wreck his head. And you can't help him escape just so you can pound him, either!"

Eet sighed, sat back down and pulled out her game device.

The other guy walked up to the door and glared in at Zim. "You makin' trouble here, pipsqueak?"

"No," Zim said in his most innocent tone of voice. "I was just wondering, uh... I would like to join you as a full member. I understand that you probably need to keep me in here for a while to make sure I'm on the level, but, uh, could you tell me how long that will take?"

The man stared at him, deadpan.

Eet snorted a little.

Zim clasped his hands together. He needed to draw on every one of his amazing skills of deceit. These weren't stupid humans, they were Irkens. "I just want to get out of here and start contributing to your mission as soon as I can."

"Sure. You know what you did to me? You made a vending machine fall right on my arm. Now I got this thing." He wiggled his robotic fingers.

"Ooh, neat," Zim said.

"What did you just say to me?"

Zim pointed at the robot arm. "It's neat."

Wick or whatever stared at him in silence some more.

"I am turnin' off," he finally said, "the sound through this door. I'm puttin' up the shield so he can't talk to us. Because screw 'im."

"Yeah, okay," Eet mumbled.

"What?" Zim froze. "You can't do that." He'd just said the arm was neat, how was that a problem? "Hey! You can't do that!"

The other Irken did something to the wall and then mouthed silent words at Zim. Zim could guess from his mouth shapes that he was probably saying something very filthy.

"Oh! You can't do that! You can't call me that word! This is illegal, you know! Hey!" He pounded on the wall.

Rikk! That was his name. He was walking away now.

Zim's own breathing was very loud in his ears. They had muted him. That was simply not fair.

He flopped down on the cot. He could see that girl sitting there playing her games.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Hey! You can't do this! Hey!"

Nothing. She really couldn't hear him.

Zim got back up and re-clouded the door. If they couldn't hear him he didn't see why he should have to look at her.

Now what? There was not a lot to do in this tiny cell. He supposed he could sit on the cot and plan strategy...

Oh, and now that he was muted he could call Tak without anyone listening in.

He pulled out the communicator she had given him and turned it over in his hands. It was sleek and dark and pointy. And very smooth. She must have made it. Everything that Tak made was like this. Slick and smooth. Even her hand had been slick and smooth when she'd grabbed his wrist.

Not that that had anything to do with anything!

Not many Invaders made their own equipment. In fact, none of them did. Even Zim usually didn't. He usually just upgraded things. Ugh! Why did she have to be so good at everything? Had she really made a mind control device, too, or was she lying to impress him? Not that he was impressed at all!

Well, he was going to call her now.

Yes, he'd just start this up and call her.

Zim bit his lip. His insides felt funny. Kind of flippy, like they did when he had a really, really good plan and he was anticipating its unfolding... it was an excited flippy feeling.

He did not want to talk to Tak, did he? No. She was awful. But then was he anxious? Of course not, it was just Tak. He didn't want to talk to Tak, though, right?

That was neither here nor there, this was for the mission! He was just going to make sure this thing worked.

He looked down at the communicator. His squeedly-spooch flipped again. At first it had been sort of a pleasant tickly flipping and now it was beginning to be unpleasant.

Why did excitement and fear feel similar? And why did he have one or the other of those right now, when they were both entirely inappropriate?

Oh, for crying out loud, it was just Tak. He would talk to her and it would be boring and he would stop having feelings about it. He hit the button.

* * *

Tak had a call. Tak had never had a call. Who was calling Tak?

Oh- oh, right. There was only one person it could be. She opened up the radio link, sighing.

"Invader ZIM reporting, sirs! Agh! I mean- hold on, I'll call you back!"

She raised an eyebrow. What was that all about? Wrong number?

Oh, she was about to miss her exit. She turned.

He was calling back.

"Yes! Tak! It's me, I've, uh, you know, pretty busy, just thought I could spare a moment to make sure your horrible thing works, heh... well, it works, so! Hmm, hmm. Yes."

"Yes, Zim. I hope you found something out. Because if you just called to make sure my communicator works, when I already knew full well that it works, that would be obnoxious. And it might even make me reconsider working with you."

"Uh, eh, er, you see- I have already found out- so many things that I don't really have time to tell you about all of them, ha, haha, yeah. So, uh, what are you doing?"

She was just picking up some parts she needed for her projects that were hard to come by via scavenging, now that she had a ship and a reasonable amount of freedom to use it. "I'm following you to make sure you don't screw anything up." She was doing that too. She was being careful to stay within five minutes of the ship.

"Ha, oh, Tak." That was the third awkward little giggle in this conversation. What was his problem? "Yes, me, screw up, that's hilarious... um... so..."

"So?" she prompted.

Zim cleared his throat.

"Have you been drugged, or anything? You're being very odd." She didn't want him to actually die, or anything. That would feel so strange. Not that she'd really care of course, it would just be weird.

"Tch! No, I haven't been drugged! Shut up, Tak! I have to get back to work!"

"Yes, you do! Because you haven't found anything out and you're wasting my time!"

"I did too find something out! It's very important. So important that I'll tell you about it later, bye!" He hung up.

What on Irk had that been about? Why was he giggling at her? Why was Zim so incredibly stupid?

* * *

"Oh, that was stupid!"

Zim flopped down on the cot, face-down. First he'd accidentally given her his sign-on to the Tallest and then he'd kept giggling at her. What was wrong with him? He was usually so smooth and confident when he talked to girls- to people. To people. To other people in general.

Zim didn't care, of course, that she was so calm and... stuff, and he'd... had a few minor errors. Tak was a rival Invader and she was evil and she hated him. He hated her. She wanted his mission. She had stolen his base. He was an Invader. He would- he would write all this down. That way, he wouldn't forget to give her the proper disdain.

Zim pulled his personal notepad out of his Pak.

_Why I Hate Tak And Never Want To See Her Stupid Face Again:_

_She is evil_

_She tried to steal my mission_

_She kicked me out of my house_

_She destroyed my base_

_I hate her_

_She tells me I'm stupid whenever I talk to her_

Yes! Good. He could feel the heat of anger making his face bunch up. Stupid Tak.

He hit the enter key a few times and started another list.

_Why I Need No One And Should Avoid Others As Much As Possible_

_I'm an Invader and too busy to like anyone_

_I'm important and everyone wants to betray me or steal what I have_

_One day I will rule the universe and then I'll be even more important_

_I hate people_

_People make me sick and angry and I hate all of them! I want them all dead_

_I hate talking to people_

_I hate everyone_

_No one is good enough for me_

_No one likes talking to me because I'm superior and I make them feel inferior_

_Tak doesn't like me anyway_

Zim stuffed the note pad back into his Pak. He was starting to write weird things on it. Being in solitary confinement did things to your mind.

Also, stress and a heavy meal didn't go together well. He would have to be strong.

He fluffed up the pillow on the cot and lay back against it, rubbing his eyes.

He would have to figure out how to turn off the soundproofing on this cell so he could get more information. How could he do that...

It was a good thing GIR wasn't here. He would have been bouncing off the walls, and-

"Oh, no, GIR!" Zim tugged his antennae. GIR would be running amok all over the base. Not getting any work done. Possibly undoing what Zim had been doing. Zim would go home to a mess.

He had to work fast and get home as soon as possible. He began to mentally run over every way the cell could be soundproofed and how to disrupt those methods of soundproofing. The problem, of course, would be the materials...

How many times had he giggled when he was talking to Tak? At least three.

Ah, it wasn't important. The soundproofing...

He could barely think. His head was pounding and over-fullness had turned to discomfort had turned to a dull, uneasy pain.

Could he also use this communicator to call GIR? He didn't see why not.

He called GIR and got no answer. Of course.

He covered his eyes with his forearm. The lights seemed too bright. The switch was outside...

* * *

Tak headed out into the docking bay with a small bag of circuit boards clutched in her hand. She spent a few minutes fruitlessly searching for her ship in the parking lot before remembering that she was using Zim's horrible ship.

She climbed into it. It still smelled like him. It probably always would, he'd spent a long time in here.

She opened his glove compartment. She'd forgotten to loot it earlier. Anything good in here?

Dry ration packs, a bottle of antacids, napkins, hand sanitizer, germ spray, a dog toy and an Etch-a-Sketch. The Etch-a-Sketch had a rough picture of Earth on it.

She had had enough of dry ration packs. They seemed to be all Zim had to eat in the base. Probably because they were inexpensive.

Was that why he'd asked her to buy him a meal? What was with the hand sanitizer? Did he have a thing about germs? Why did he have this stuff? And Zim did not own a dog. Was this GIR's toy? Did Zim realize GIR was not a dog? Did Zim realize GIR didn't even look like a halfway convincing dog? Even if he had been a good dog, MiMi had been a very convincing cat and Tak hadn't bought her any cat toys.

Well, in any case she didn't want any of these things. She packed them back up.

She hesitated when she got to the antacids.

What had he said? Something about having a weaker digestive system after time on Earth. So this planet was actually affecting his health and he still clung to it even though he would never be rewarded.

Poor, pitiful, stupid Zim.

Okay. She'd gotten her circuit boards. According to the kidnappers' route and what happened to be handily adjacent to it, her next stop was for some specialized nanowire.

She started humming a tune. Shopping was much easier than digging through garbage.

She'd never give up salvaging entirely, though, probably not even when she was rich and famous. She was more creative when she had a random assortment of materials to give her ideas.

She checked the tracker. She'd never dreamed how vital it would turn out to be to have a tracking device on Zim. How good of her to be prepared.

So far the band of traitors was still following the route that had been programmed into their computers. Good. She wanted that nanowire.

It was very quiet in here. Did the Voot Cruiser have a radio?

It did. She turned it on. Huh. It was set to talk radio. How vile. She changed it to a jazz station.

Someone was calling her. Three guesses who that was. She answered.

"Zim!"

No answer. Just breathing.

"Zim, I know it's you! What do you want now? I literally just spoke to you a second ago!"

Nothing.

"Answer me! Why are you calling me again?"

He hung up. Must not have anything for her. Idiot.

* * *

Bri turned away from the console and adjusted his goggles. "It didn't work, I'm afraid. Whoever he called- before he tried to contact his base just now, I mean- they've blocked all tracking data. Did quite a good job, really."

Vaz drummed his fingers on his knee. "Okay. The next time he calls anyone, try again to listen in. It may be nothing, he was calling his robot and some Earth creature earlier, but we might as well keep an eye on it." Especially if he was using special technology to make sure the call wasn't blocked.

"All right, but I can't guarantee anything. We can listen in on his end, but only if someone is literally standing right there listening. Whoever did this is some kind of encrypting genius. I'd love to talk to them sometime."

Vaz nodded. "All right." He sighed and smoothed back his antennae. "I'll go talk to Zim." But not about the call. If it was important, they would probably learn more from being able to listen in on him calling again without knowing he was being observed than they would from an interrogation.

He glanced to the right. There was a small animal pinned to a board on the wall, its skin pulled apart in flaps. "Did Eet catch that for you?" He had told her not to do that.

"No, uh..." Bri cleared his throat. "I caught it myself. Don't blame her."

"Okay." He was slightly impressed that Bri had avoided shifting blame, but... "I've asked you not to do that, Bri. It's not... really the vibe I want."

"But it's science," Bri said.

"I know. But science doesn't happen here," Vaz said. "Science happens somewhere else."

"But I live here."

Vaz sighed. "Maybe we'll get you a lab sometime. Okay? And Bri-"

"Yes?"

"I know you're interested in the criminal mind, but to be clear: don't... don't try that stuff out on Zim. I don't think that would end well. Okay?"

Bri nodded. "Okay."

Vaz headed out of the room. Honestly, this was like herding cats.

* * *

Tak had yet another call. She answered. "Yes! Hello! What is it?"

Once more, only heavy breathing answered her.

"I am going to rip off your head and fill it with cement!" she said. "You almost made me miss my turn!"

"It's me!"

Tak twitched. "Who is this?"

The voice was high-pitched and distorted. "It's me! GIR!"

"Why... why are you calling me?"

"Because I am! Master was callin' me but I called you instead! Cuz I can!"

Tak hung up on him. Honestly. When there was no answer but breathing twice in a row she'd almost thought some weird, dangerous person was calling.

Eh, maybe she'd been right.

And how was a robot making breathing sounds?


	5. Chapter 5

A knocking. The door. Must be Dib.

"G'way." Zim rolled onto his side. Cold space. Not warm. He felt in front of him. Rock? Not couch. Not GIR. He did not smell GIR. He did not smell his own scent soaked into the couch cushions. He didn't smell home. Who was knocking? Where was he? Had Dib done something?

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. He heard the knocking again. "Who dares?" he mumbled.

Had he dozed off? He hoped he hadn't. The mission... he had to rest occasionally because even with a Pak as amazing as his, his organic body could not go on forever without brief recuperation but actually sleeping wasn't necessary and it wasn't safe to lose consciousness entirely and it was also disgusting.

There were little crusts in the corners of his eyes. Ugh. And why was everything so bright?

Oh, right. Yes. He was in the cell. He had been lying down to think about the soundproofing and wait to feel less nauseated and now he was here. He did feel better. Mostly. A bit groggy now. He hated being groggy.

Someone was at the door knocking. If he could hear them knocking, they must have turned the sound back on.

He shuffled over to the door. Vaz was standing there.

"Oh," he said. "Vaz. Yes, greetings. I was just..." He cleared his throat. He'd been bored, and the cot was somewhat comfortable, and he'd just been resting his eyes was all. He had not slept. Not that he needed to explain that to anyone.

"I'm not going to judge you for dozing off," Vaz said, unperturbed. "You've been kidnapped. You're probably a little tired."

"You-" Zim sputtered. It was like Vaz could read his mind. Zim had not given anyone permission to read his mind. "I was not asleep! That's revolting!"

"Okay. If you say so."

"I'm an Invader!"

"Yes, yes, you certainly are. So, Zim. You seem to think we're going to kill the Tallest."

"Aren't you?"

"No, no! Not at all. So don't worry on that account, hm?"

"But we are going to... destroy the Massive," Zim guessed.

Vaz smiled. "Nothing so drastic. I know you have a-" He turned away, snorting.

Zim scowled. "What?"

"You have a special relationship with the Tallest, don't you?"

"They trust me. I'm valuable. Is that... amusing to you, Vaz?"

"No! Nope. But don't worry about them, okay?"

"Sure."

"Now, is there anything you need? Maybe a blanket?"

"You just said you wouldn't judge me for dozing off!" Not that he had dozed off in the first place, either!

"I'm sorry, I don't usually- there's something very funny about you, you know that? It's irresistible. Usually I try to avoid belittling people, but-" Vaz snorted.

Zim's hands bunched into fists at his sides. His voice was cool. "Try to resist a little harder or I might reconsider working with you."

"Sure. Sure. Well, if there's nothing you need, then..."

"Excuse me. What exactly do you expect me to do, again?"

Vaz smiled at him. "You'll find out. And no one else here knows exactly, so don't be too hard on them when they won't tell you, either."

"Okay," Zim muttered.

"We don't want to hurt you or mistreat you, just so we're clear." Right. Locking Zim up wasn't mistreatment, sure. "Is there anything you need?"

"Nothing."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"If you get bored, that TV there has unlimited cable."

"Does it get wrestling?

Vaz blinked. "Come again?"

Ack! Wrestling was an Earth sport. Of course that TV didn't get it. "Never mind," Zim said. "I don't need anything, you can go."

"All right."

Zim went back to the cot. He heard Vaz speaking sharply to Eet. "What part of 'monitoring the prisoner' sounded like you should turn his sound off?"

"Hey, boss, Rikk did it."

"He called someone as soon as the sound was off!" Ah! They knew Zim had made a call. That was bad!

"Who'd he be calling?"

"I don't know-" Vaz dropped his voice, perhaps realizing too late that Zim might overhear. He didn't drop his voice low enough, Zim could still make out his words. "A partner or someone? I don't know, because you had the sound off and didn't hear what they said!"

Partner? Partner? Zim didn't have any partner. Certainly not Tak. He didn't even like Tak.

"Gee, that sucks. Yell at Rikk."

"Don't let anyone else turn that sound off! I swear, I should just assign the twins to this-"

Zim turned towards the door. "No, you don't need to do that, I'll stay right here and not cause any trouble."

Silence fell for a minute. Vaz resumed speaking in a voice too low for Zim to hear.

Zim picked up the pillow and started squishing it all over. There was probably nothing hidden in it, but he might as well check to be sure. He'd forgotten to do so earlier.

There was nothing in it.

Vaz was walking away. Zim sighed. He supposed he'd have to try talking to Eet again.

He walked up to the door. "Hello. Eet."

She rolled her deep blue eyes at him. That could be how he remembered her name. Blue eyes weren't all that common. Blue eyes: Eet. Eyes: Eet.

"I'm not going to talk to you," she was saying.

"Why not?"

"Because you are boring and because I don't have anything to say to you."

"Fine! I don't want to talk to you either!" he snapped.

"Good."

"Fine!"

He went back to the cot and sat down.

Ah, but thanks to Vaz he had information to report to Tak now. He pulled out the communicator.

He gulped. He would be able to speak more coherently this time, right?

Oh, come on. It was just Tak. It was just Tak! Being in solitary confinement must really be messing with his mind if talking to Tak seemed like anything but stupid. The only reason he'd messed up before- and he hadn't- not really- just a little bit- it was because he'd been tired and now he wasn't.

Ah, but that girl Eet was listening in on him! He couldn't call Tak.

Zim pressed his fists to his temples. The communicator lay in his lap. It was heavy. His heart was beating a bit too firmly. They not only were listening in, but they knew when he made a call. So they would know when to spy on him extra.

He could communicate silently with Tak by using his notepad, but the signal... he didn't want them to know he was making a call.

What was in his Pak? A few tools and scanning devices, nothing that had been able to help him escape or do anything to either the control panel to the TV set or the soundproofing mechanism. The emotion suppressor they'd put on him when he'd first arrived. A few balls of lint and assorted odds and ends.

He took out the suppressor and pulled its casing apart. He looked over the insides of it. Perhaps with these parts, the tools he was carrying and the capabilities already present in Tak's communicator, he could upgrade the thing so that these people didn't know he was making a call at all. And then he would have improved on something Tak had made.

He knelt on the floor and spread out the tools.

He didn't know how long it took him. There was no clock in here and Zim didn't wear a watch. It took him several attempts to accomplish what he wanted with the communicator. The first few attempts just made it make staticky noises at him.

Tak's design was something special. Usually Zim saw all kinds of stupid sloppy things in the tech he fixed up, but this was on a different level. A different level entirely. Why, if everyone was as good at building as Tak was, maybe he wouldn't have hated being an Inventor so much. So much of that job had been about fixing other people's stupid mistakes.

Finally, though, he was able improve it! And then he was able to make a call.

* * *

Tak had collected all the parts she needed. There was not much she could do with them without a work space. The Voot Cruiser was not a viable work space. It was tiny. That left Tak without any pressing tasks to carry out.

It had been a very long time since Tak had had no work to do. She would have to figure out how to spend her new semi-leisure time.

She nearly missed the call because she was singing along with the radio.

"What?" she snapped when Zim's face came up on the hologram. "I hope you have something good!" Geez, he hadn't heard her singing, had he? No, no, he wouldn't have heard anything since before she accepted the call. Still, she... she'd gotten carried away. She couldn't get radio signals or even consistent Internet on Dirt.

She was a fantastic singer though if she did say so herself so who cared if he had heard anything? Not her.

He held up his personal notepad. She squinted. It was a bit hard to read the holographic projection of his notes, though it was made easier by the fact that he wrote in all capitals like a serial killer.

"A list of why you don't need people," she said, reading the note. "Because you hate them. Good for you, I guess? I don't like anyone either, they're all disappointing."

Zim shook his head. "Not that!" She thought he might be blushing. What was the big deal? He didn't like anyone. That was fine. She didn't know why he thought she needed to know that, but fine.

Hold on, what was that at the end of the list? 'Tak doesn't-'

Zim tapped on the pad and the note changed before Tak could read what it was that she didn't do. Those were probably Zim's notes on how she was horrible. That made sense. She certainly had plenty of notes of her own on him.

She read the note out loud. "Hello, Tak. How are you. What are you doing. I am fine, except for the minor detail of being held in solitary confinement." It was written just like that without question marks. "Question marks, Zim! They exist. Is this how you write your report transcripts to the Tallest?" No wonder they hated him.

He tilted his head, blinking, and tapped 'How are you'.

"Oh, I'm fine, I suppose, apart from having a complete fool for a mission partner at the moment." His antennae perked at the word 'partner'. She wondered if that was somehow a poor choice of word. She did not trust his display of interest.

"And why are you pretending to care how I am, exactly?" she said.

Zim fiddled with one antenna, drawing her attention to how deep black and shiny it was. She wished he would not do that.

Zim frowned and shook his head. He scrolled down to a new note.

"They are listening in, I can't talk," she read aloud. "Oh, all right."

He changed the note again.

"They were able to figure out that I was sending out a signal, so I improved your communications device-" He'd done what? "How dare you? I built that myself!"

Zim looked taken aback. He tapped the word 'improved'.

"You did not improve it!" she seethed. "You ruined it!"

"But it works better now!"

"How dare-" She bit her tongue. She wasn't a smeet to get all bent out of shape when someone didn't appreciate her creations, was she? "You didn't need to change it."

He tapped 'figure out that I was sending out a signal'.

"You probably just made it worse!"

He shook his head, glaring at her.

This was wasting her time. "Do you have any real information for me or not?"

He nodded. He scrolled down.

"They are not planning to kill the Tallest or destroy the Massive," she read. "Can I go home now."

He changed the note again.

"I believe the Tallest would rather I did the joke I was assigned to," she read. Her eyebrows arched.

He glowered at her and tapped the word.

"I didn't make any substitutions. That's what it says, Zim. I presume you meant to write 'job', but it says 'joke'."

He looked down at the note. "Huh," he said aloud. "How bout that."

"What an interesting mistake."

"Pff," he said, "this is pathetic. I'm not ever going to believe this lie about my mission being fake. I'm not just gonna hand it to you. Really, I was beginning to expect more from you!"

Buffoon. He deserved whatever mistreatment he got in captivity. "Are you sure they're not planning to kill the Tallest?"

He turned the pad towards himself and wrote something. He turned it to face her.

"Vaz told me they aren't," she read. "Oh, yes, the criminal leader... he seems trustworthy."

Zim nodded.

"That was sarcasm! Isn't it possible that he told you what you want to hear? Since he's a traitor and a criminal, Zim?"

He scowled at her. "Yes, but..."

"But? I understand that you don't like being in a cell, but you claim to be an Invader. Surely you won't let discomfort stop you!" She drummed her fingers on the control panel. "Honestly, I didn't think it was possible for you to disappoint me... but I thought if you had one good quality, it was maybe tenacity. Maybe. If you had ONE good quality. Now I see you have none."

Zim was scribbling furiously on the pad.

This time his little rant was too long and stupid for her to care to read aloud.

_TAK I AM THE MOST TENACIOUS OF THEM ALL. THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. IT IS SIMPLY THAT I HAVE NOTHING TO DO IN HERE AND I AM A FINELY HONED TOOL THAT ACHES TO BE USED_

"Interrogate someone."

_THEY ARE AVOIDING ME. I AM ALL ALONE. IT HAS BEEN WEEKS._

"It has not been weeks! You last called me less than an hour ago!"

_THAT DOESNT SEEM RIGHT. I AM PRETTY SURE THAT I HAVE BEEN IN HERE WEEKS. MY MISSION HAVE TO GET BACK TO MISSION_

"No! It's been less than an hour! Put that thing down and get back to whatever it is you were doing, I'm busy." Except she wasn't busy.

_I WASNT DOING ANYTHING TAK BECAUSE I AM ALONE IN A CELL_

Zim looked a bit frazzled.

"Not doing anything? Weren't you ruining my communicator?"

He fumed and scribbled out something.

_YOU SHOULD BE HONORED THAT YOUR PITIFUL LITTLE INVENTION WAS UPGRADED BY ZIM. IT'S 50% MORE EFFICIENT NOW AND I BET THEY HAVE NO IDEA THAT I'M CALLING ANYONE. YOU ARE WELCOME._

"Honored? Honored?! You lout! If I did anything to any of your worthless possessions you would be even angrier than I am! And you'd be wrong to be angry! Because I'd do something good!"

Zim raised one finger, opening his mouth for a tirade. He closed it. He scowled and rocked back and forth. He wrote:

_NO. WHAT WOULD YOU DO EXACTLY_

"It was just an example! My only point was that you're horrible and never, ever touch anything I've made ever again!"

_I MADE IT BETTER_

"You did not! Just never mind! You've found out hardly anything. Get back to work! Isn't there a guard you can talk to, at least?"

_SHE WILL NOT SPEAK TO ZIM_

"Listen! This is your job, not mine. You figure out how to get information from them. There has to be one out of the seven that will speak to you."

Zim grit his teeth together. "Fine! I'll call back when I have more."

He ended the call.

Ergh. Well, there was the nuisance of him dealt with for the time being.

Hold on, had he forgotten that his notepad could send emails? Wouldn't it have been exponentially easier to send her the text messages directly? She supposed it was possible that he'd been blocked from sendng email, but if he thought he was smart enough to 'improve' her communicator he should be smart enough to figure out how to get around blocks to send an email!

Tak leaned back in her seat. She would like nothing more than to forget about Zim for a while. Unfortunately she had just noticed all over again how much his scent clung to this ship.

If Tak stuck her new purchases into her Pak, put her face shield up and strapped on the seatbelt, she could drive with the top down. Hmmm...

Hmmm, what was that up ahead? A police patrol ship?

The ship was signaling someone. Not Tak. Tak was going exactly the speed limit.

She checked the speedometer. Or a little above. If there was one thing this piece of junk ship had, it was speed. It was difficult not to exploit that.

Ugh, that cop  _was_ signaling her. She slowed down and turned on her ship-to-ship radio.

"Is there a problem here, officer?"

The cop frowned at Tak. She was a female, so she was likely to be reasonable. "Where did you get that ship?"

"Oh, I... purchased this from a guy I met," she said.

"And what did this guy look like?"

"Oh, he was..." Tak trailed off.

How was she about to explain that one? This officer definitely knew who Zim was from news broadcasts and event coverage of Operation Impending Doom II. Tak had known him from those sources in intimate detail before ever meeting him in person- only to find to the detriments of various plans that she did not know as much about him as she'd thought- the point was that the officer would know his name. But would she believe Tak? More importantly, did Tak want to say that was where she'd gotten the ship?

"When did you purchase this ship?" the officer prompted.

"Just yesterday! If it's involved in any crimes I know nothing about them."

"It was recorded knocking down a traffic signal a few months ago. There's a sizeable fine."

Of course it was. "Ah, see, I know nothing about that."

The officer squinted at Tak. "What's that thing embedded in your orbital ridge?"

Uh-oh. "This?" She gestured at her psi implant. "It's purely cosmetic." Home-made mental alteration devices were frowned upon. Of course so were cosmetic ones.

The officer looked unimpressed. "Do you have a permit for that?"

"Yes, of course. Hold on a second, I'll just..."

Where was that turbo button again? Ah... here it was. Time to leave!

* * *

Zim sat on the edge of the cot, hunched over and clutching the edge of the mattress. Now Tak definitely thought he was incompetent. Zim wasn't incompetent! He was going to impress her deeply, and then...

What would she do once he impressed her? Hmm. Maybe she'd...

He didn't know. Tak wasn't a Tallest or anything, the most she could do for him was leave him alone.

Well then, she would leave him alone once he impressed her.

She thought he wasn't tenacious? Zim was tenacious. Zim was sheer grit in Irken form! And he  _had_ improved her communicator. When he saw her again, he'd show her! Not that he cared if he ever saw her again! In fact, he hoped he didn't!

Was that Eet person still out there? He went to the door.

Yes, she was still there. "Hey," he said.

"Shut  _up!"_ she snapped.

"Is there anyone else out there?" he asked.

"No, everyone else is busy!"

Zim nibbled on the inside of his lower lip. He glanced over his shoulder, up at the TV set.

No! He could not give up and watch TV. He had to help the Tallest. He had to impress- he had to help the Tallest.

Well, he wasn't getting out into the ship by just talking to people. It was time to pull out his decoy skills.

Zim flopped to the ground. "Ah! My spine!"

He writhed for a little bit. Eet made no sound.

He kicked the door. "My spine is broken! I can't help you people with a broken spine! Hello? I need medical attention! Take me to a doctor!"

"Your Pak will fix it," Eet mumbled.

Oh. So it would. He had forgotten, for a moment, that she would know that.

"I have to call my mom," he said.

"You don't... have one."

Oh. So he didn't. He had forgotten that she would know that, too.

"The facilities. Where's your restroom?"

"Zim, what? We don't have one. And if we did you wouldn't need it. That's disgusting."

"Hmm, that's true," he mumbled.

Humans might be giant, stinky, terrifying monsters but in some ways they were easier to deal with. Zim could always appeal to some base, revolting weakness of humanity in a pinch.

Eet may have been a defective traitor, but like Zim and Tak, she was still a mighty Irken warrior. Zim tapped his cheek. What would make Zim let someone out of a cell?

He sighed. Nothing. Nothing in the universe would make Zim act in a manner contrary to the goals of his mission. What if this Eet was the same way?

Tak might know what to tell her.

NO! Tak would not know! If she knew, she would have told Zim what to do. He paced back and forth. She would have very rudely insisted that Zim do what she wanted. And Zim did not need her! And if Tak thought he couldn't do this-

He dragged his claws down the sides of his face. Ugh. What was more important? Impressing Tak, or ensuring the safety of the Tallest?

Of course at the moment they sort of coincided...

Did Tak understand that Zim was at a loss and not just being lazy? He would hope that she'd know better than to think he would ever slack off on the job, but she did hate him. She already was trying to interpret his very real concern that this was not how he should be spending his time as a sign that he was simply too chicken or too weak to stay here and deal with things.

He pinched the ridge of bone between his eyes. "Eet, if you find someone else to talk to me I'll spare you when I rule the universe!"

She turned to grin at him. "A ha! What was that? Huh? Big ol' loyalist baby? Rule the universe?" Her face soured. "You hypocrite. You make me sick."

She pulled away.

He couldn't talk to Tak. That would be like giving up. She thought he already had given up.

Why did he care what she thought anyway?

But no, he wouldn't call her.

Zim rested his forehead against the glass and thought for a second. The glass was warm and smooth. It made him think of his days as a little tiny Irken in a glass training pod.

What had Zim done every time Red and Purple- er- the Almighty Tallest- did not immediately realize he wanted their attention? As children and adults?

It always worked.

"Hey," he said.

Eet didn't answer.

"Hey," Zim repeated.

Eet still did not answer.

But that was okay.

Zim could say 'hey' for a very long time.

* * *

"This ship," the dealer said, "is trash."

"I know," Tak said. "It certainly is. The worst of garbage."

But something stiffened the corner of her mouth. The ship was horrible but it was... well, she didn't know why this should matter, but the ship was largely Zim's handiwork, and he had clearly spent a large part of his life in it. It wasn't really hers to trade away, either...

Ha! He would have done exactly the same thing in her position, if he had access to  _her_ precious ship. In fact, hadn't he allowed her precious ship to moulder in a human's garage for months?

"Just take it and give me whatever you think is a worthy trade-in," she said.

The dealer jabbed his thumb at the worst thing in the lot.

"Of course," Tak muttered. "That's not stolen, is it?" She was handing in a ship to avoid police attention, she shouldn't assume she was the first to have that idea.

"Lady, give me some credit, no one would steal that thing."

"I suppose you have a point." There still may have been a crime committed with it. She should be cautious. Maybe she'd alter the look of it if she got time.

"Well." He dusted his hands against each other with a look of disgust. "I'll haul this off, and-"

"Hold on. Let me clean out the glove compartment first," she said.

He shrugged. "Whatever."

She opened the Voot. She had already taken her purchases out of it and put them in her Pak, but she had left Zim's things in the glove compartment where they were.

She left the dog toy and the hand sanitizer in the ship. She put Zim's bottle of antacids in her Pak. Maybe it would be useful.

Okay, she was thinking he might need it. And maybe she'd give it to him. And then he'd be grateful. And then... she had no idea what would happen from there, but it was a possible point of manipulation.

She rubbed her temples. Stupid. She'd probably just keep his antacids forever even though she had never had indigestion a day in her life. She was just relieved that she had no compulsion to take the other things. The others were completely wrong. Tak did not compulsively hoard garbage. She really did only take what might be useful. "Okay, take the ship," she said.

"The alleged ship."

"Yes, the alleged ship."

* * *

"Hey. Hey. Hey..."

"Hey."

That was a new voice.

Zim looked up. Eet was standing there, quivering with rage. Standing next to her was a lanky, stooped guy with lab gloves and goggles on.

"Make him stop," Eet whispered. "Just make him stop saying that."

The new person adjusted his goggles. "Hello, Zim," he said. "My name is Bri. Just Bri. We don't really have titles here, so forgive me if we're forgetting to use yours."

Zim hadn't even noticed that they weren't using the 'Invader'. Lots of people forgot to call him 'Invader' Zim. He guessed they just... knew he was an Invader and plain 'Zim' was easier to say, or something.

Bri knelt down so that he was at eye level with Zim, who was sitting on the floor. "Eet tells me you feel like talking. You can talk to me, if you want."

Zim grinned at him. "Oh, I'd like that."

Bri grinned back. Something about his grin took away Zim's grin. "I would too."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: warning! bri is NOT intended to be an author mouthpiece, i do not necessarily condone the things he is saying, and also this chapter has TL;DR character speechifying in it sorry.
> 
> this chapter does not yet have an illustration

Tak had gotten a bit off route, stopping to trade in that ship. It had to be done. She was not going to get arrested because Zim couldn't control his terrible old ship and broke things in it.

He was going to be very upset. She wondered if his childish preoccupation with revenge would extend to him trying to take revenge on her. Maybe by doing something to her ship when they got back to Earth. She should be on her guard.

Maybe she would conceal the theft from him for a while. Tell him the Voot cruiser was just in the shop. It wasn't like it hadn't needed repairs...

Oh, now, that would just make him angrier. It had been pathetically obvious that he did his own repairs, whether he knew how to or not. He was probably one of those sickening fools that didn't want anyone else to touch his ship and treated the ship as if it had an intelligence when it didn't. Tak was different. Her ship really did have an intelligence. She had installed it herself.

Although when she thought about it, the Voot Cruiser was hardly a luxury vehicle. In fact, it was more plausible that he just didn't want to pay for repairs, since he was mooching food off her already...

But all that was beside the point. The point was that she was off course and this new ship was even worse than the Voot and very slow and it would take her some time to catch up. If something unexpected happened, it would take her some time to intervene.

The delay was all Zim's fault, of course. Smashing a traffic light. That was just like him.

* * *

"What would you like to talk about, Zim?"

This new person, Bri, sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of him. His legs were long and knobbly and stuck out to the sides. In other words, they were proper Irken legs, not like the stubby folded-up things tucked under Zim's body.

No matter, though, a meat shell could always be altered or replaced... but that wasn't important now.

"I'd like to know where we're going," Zim said.

"Oh, I'm afraid I wasn't told that. I believe Vaz didn't want anyone to be able to tell you."

That was what Vaz had said he had done. So inconsiderate.

Someone around here had to know something! "I want to know what this little band of miscreants is trying to accomplish in the first place," he said.

"Well," Bri said. "It depends on which of us you want to know about. Vaz has some sort of ideals. Eet was sentenced to death at some point, I forget why. So she's on the run. The twins... I think it has something to do with them being sisters..."

"But they're not sisters, they're randomized clones," Zim said.

"Well, who are we to deny their kinship?"

"Other clones."

Bri shrugged. "Anyway, I'm here because I wanted to be able to choose what I study, and not be forced to simply build bigger guns."

Zim sighed. For one thing, what was wrong with guns? For another, none of this was helpful so far. "So you're telling me all of you have your own little selfish problems that have nothing to do with each other? Pathetic... I thought you wanted to lead the Irken race into a glorious new future or something. Or maybe you hated the Tallest. Or you just want to have all the snacks."

"Vaz may be interested in leading us into a glorious future. I'm less certain of the others, although we do respect him to a certain extent. But enough about us," Bri said. "What about you?"

"I have my own snacks."

"Of course you do, but I meant- why are you an Invader?"

"Tch!" What kind of question was that? "Because it's the only job worth having."

Bri tilted his head. "Really? I've never wanted to be one."

"You liar!" Zim folded his arms over his chest. "Everyone wants to be an Invader."

"Is that why you fought your way into being one? Because everyone wants it? What about you? Do you want it?" Shouldn't the answer to that be obvious? "You're the one who has the job. Who has to do the job. We've seen your reports. It looks like hard work."

Zim inclined his head forward. "Thank you, yes, it is. But it's the least I can do, you know, for the Empire."

"So you do it for the Empire?"

"It's what I do best."

"What part of it is what you do best?"

"Hmm? What part of what?"

"Invading. It's a complicated job, I hear. Are you in it for the Inventing?" Bri said. "Because that's a different job. You had that job once, remember?"

Zim waved that away. "Oh, yes, that was too easy."

"Is stealth what you're best at?"

"I guess. Yes."

"Information collecting?"

"Yes, yes, I'm good at that too." Zim was the best at everything.

"So then you chose this job because it uses the widest range of your talents?"

"I... suppose..." Zim drummed his fingers on the floor. Talking about himself was great and all, but Bri was steering him away from the important information. "So... what's your job here?"

"I handle the cloaking, the radio jamming, everything like that," Bri said.

"I see."

Bri put a hand to his chin. "Why are you smiling? Does that strike you as funny?"

Zim had just been thinking about how Tak had thoroughly circumvented all of this guy's jamming efforts without his knowledge. Had that shown on his face? He hadn't meant for it to.

"I'm sorry, I think I've embarrassed you," Bri said.

"What? Me? No! No, no, nonsense! Invader Zim does not get embarrassed. Preposterous."

"Ah, no harm done then."

"None at all."

Zim needed to try a different tack. Tactic. Subject.

"Are you sure I didn't embarrass you?" Bri asked.

Zim avoided his eyes. "No. I mean, no. I mean, I'm sure! What kind of cloaking does this ship have? Can it get close to the Massive?"

"We'll have to see whether it can get there without being discovered."

"I bet it can't," Zim said.

Bri shrugged. "If the cloak doesn't work, I'll build a new one. I'm always learning new things about technology. It's amazing!"

"But if they catch you sneaking around you'll be executed and then you'll never invent anything ever again," Zim pointed out.

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to avoid being executed. Just look at you."

"Excuse me? What about me?"

"Well, you're alive."

"The Tallest don't want me dead! What are you talking about?" Ugh, Bri was one of  _those,_ wasn't he?

Bri shrugged. "Well, we'll have to wait and see how this goes. It will be exciting, I think."

"Hmph." Zim looked away, His antennae flattened to his scalp.

"So you have a SIR unit, don't you?"

What kind of question was that? "Yes! Of course I have one. I'm an Invader, aren't I?"

"What model? I used to work on them, you see. I'm always interested to hear how they actually end up being used."

"I have a GIR unit," Zim said.

Bri's eyebrows arched. "A... GIR unit?"

"Yes." Zim sort of hoped Bri wouldn't ask what the G stood for because Zim had never found out. "You probably haven't heard of them. They're new." Zim rocked back and forth a little bit, recalling how GIR had been a special model just for him. "I believe they were invented specifically for my mission. So you've probably never heard of it." Almost no one had, in his experience.

Bri spent an oddly long time deciding how to answer. "And how does the GIR unit function?"

Zim's face twisted. He forced it back into a neutral shape. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot it was Probing Day. I should have prepared a report. Oh, wait, there's one in my pocket-" Zim pulled his hand out of his pocket. "It says 'mind your own business you're not the Tallest! Huh? Eh? Hm!'"

Bri blinked. "Okay."

Zim separated his fingers and stuffed his hand back into his pocket. He couldn't really replicate the humans' hand gesture without their full range of fingers. Even if he could, Bri wouldn't have seen it before and he wouldn't know to be properly offended.

"Anyhow," Zim said, recovering without missing a beat, "why do you all live together? Don't you despise each other?"

"Why would we despise each other?"

Zim snorted. "Why wouldn't you? I despise you already."

"Do you despise most people, Zim?"

"Yes, definitely. Don't you?"

"You seem very angry."

"Yes, usually," Zim confirmed.

"Is that a pleasant way to live?" Bri asked. "Being angry and hateful all the time?"

Zim felt one antenna twitching. He couldn't really keep them from doing that when he was annoyed any more than he could stop his hands from shaking when he was afraid. "What are you talking about?"

"It's just that most Irkens seem to think like you do. You know, other species enjoy each other's company. And they seem happier."

Zim leaned back, propping himself up on his hands. So was this a hedonism type thing? "You too?"

"Me too? What do you mean?"

"My SIR unit thinks I'm not happy."

"Your GIR unit?"

"Yeah, him. What are you people going on about? What do you need to be happy for?"

"People like being happy. Don't you?"

"Of course I do, but aren't there more important things?"

"Like what?"

"Like practically anything else!" Zim spread his hands apart. "The Irkens are the most advanced and incredible species in the universe! Isn't that good enough for you? You want happiness as well?"

Bri shrugged. "I'm just asking. Not many people like you, you see. No one would want to be you. And yet." Bri tapped his chin. "You seem very loyal. Very driven. You've just said everything Irken soldiers are expected to say. Would you say that you are, in fact, the thing Irken society pressures us to be? Independent and unreliant on anyone, completely selfish and completely loyal to the ideals you've been fed since birth. Aggressive, but neutered. Is not this what we will become if we continue on our current path? All of us mock and revile the exiled fool, but we fail to recognize the exiled fool in ourselves."

Zim glanced over his shoulder. He was still trapped in a cell. He was a completely captive audience for this madman.

"Yes, yes, that's all very interesting," he said quickly. "Listen, I think I should spend some time alone and... reflect on... all of that. All of that... very... important stuff you just said. So why don't you, um..."

Bri was leaning in so close that his breath fogged up the wall. Zim scooted back a few inches.

"Ah," Bri said. "You think it's nonsense, don't you?"

"Well-"

"And yet, having seen that I cherish this notion, you don't choose to insult it. You were so free with your insults a moment ago, but now that I've opened up to you I detect a half-hearted but unsolicited attempt to spare my feelings!"

Zim blinked. He'd never spared anyone's 'feelings' in his life. "I don't... want you to get angry enough to kill me." He was trapped, after all.

"But I'm not going to do that. You have to know that on some level. I'm not threatening you in any way. I've given you no indication whatsoever that I may pose a physical threat."

Bri was quite twiggy. Zim, though amazing, was not known for quite as much amazingness in the physical combat arena when that was compared to his other talents, though he had a great deal of endurance- but even so, he was capable enough to get by and he thought he could probably turn Bri into a smear on the floor. If it came to that.

"But you could have a gun," Zim pointed out. "I'm unarmed."

"Isn't it possible that you have, within yourself, some unspoken, unexpressed desire to connect with another sapient being?"

"Er..."

"Isn't it possible that you are an Invader  _because_  you believe that everyone else wants to be one? Because you, scorned and reviled and short, desire desperately to be envied? That you crave recognition of your worth as an individual, by anyone, by any means necessary?"

Zim took a deep breath.  _"NO!"_

Bri recoiled, blinking. "Goodness, you're loud."

"Yes, I am. Now get out of here! I don't have anything else to say to you." Zim got up and crossed the room to sit down on his cot.

"Have I said anything untoward? I was just making conversation."

Zim refused to look at him. He shouldn't have to deal with this stuff. One of the perks of an Invader was supposed to be not dealing with weirdos. (Unless they were obsessive fans. Zim had gotten a couple of... very odd love letters in his time. He had shredded them without reply.)

"Zim?" Bri prompted.

"I said I don't have anything else to say to you." Zim looked up. Those twins had appeared one on each side of Bri.

"Bri," one of them said, "have you been talking to him?"

"Yes." Bri looked disgruntled. "I don't see the problem. You were talking to him, and you were making an intentional attempt to make him uncomfortable. I unintentionally made him uncomfortable while attempting to discuss what I thought might be mutual interests."

The twins shook their heads with a scowl. "Well, Vaz wants you."

"All right..." Bri hesitated. He locked eyes with Zim. "I hope you will be willing to talk to me again," he said. "I didn't even get around to discussing your research."

He left.

Nobody usually asked Zim about his research. Given what Bri had said so far Zim was not so sure he wanted to discuss work with him.

The twins peered in at him. "Are you okay?"

"Yes! You don't care."

Zim could not be certain of this, since he could not tell them apart, but he thought only one twin had been speaking all this time. "Right, we don't," she said shortly. "Bri doesn't mean to be creepy, okay? Don't make him upset or we will make you regret it."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you will. I'm not going to do anything to him. I just want to be left alone, okay?"

"Sure. We can do that."

They turned away. Silence fell.

Why did they care if Bri was upset? He wasn't the boss of them. Was he?

Zim looked down at his pointed boots. He thought he must have learned something from that long conversation, it had taken up so much of his time and been such an inconvenience, but he couldn't think of what it was now. Maybe nothing had been useful in it and it really was just a huge waste of his time. That would be even more galling.

Zim swung his legs back and forth. The only sane one around here was Zim. And maybe kinda also Tak. He never would have considered her reasonable before, but compared to these people.

Maybe he would call her...

No. He shook his head, braced himself and slapped himself across the face. Ow.

Hopefully that had knocked the crazy fumes out of his head. Now he would go back to being normal and not thinking about Tak at all.

* * *

"You people. Honestly. I gave you very clear instructions." Vaz rubbed his temples. "This shouldn't be that hard. He might be a little dangerous, too, you know. My expectations that he won't be were all based on you not, you know, poking him with a stick!"

Bri shuffled, looking suitably chastised. Eet just looked mad.

"Boss," she said, "you said I wouldn't have to guard him."

"Well, plans change, Eet. Who's watching him now?"

"Hik and Ka."

"The twins? Good, that's fine. How's Skulk?"

"Recovering," Bri said.

"All right," Vaz said. "Everything's still on target so far."

It wasn't like he hadn't known this plan wouldn't have tricky spots. He'd thought he could trust his people better. He should have known. Nowadays Irkens had regressed into scared, violent children. It wasn't really their fault. They didn't mean to disappoint him. That was why they needed him.

"Have you found anything else out about the person he called?" he asked. Zim had had a brief phone conversation a little while ago. This time the call hadn't been picked up on by the monitoring systems, but Eet had overheard him talking and some female voice replying.

"No, nothing," Bri said. "There's no chance she called the Tallest, is there?"

Eet shrugged. "I don't think so, she sounded like she didn't even want to talk to him."

"If she did call them, there's not much she can say to them that would affect our plans. They're arrogant. They don't take threats seriously, you know. With our shields, they can't touch us anyway." Vaz leaned back. "Has anyone asked him about her? Who she is? Why she's talking to him?" It was obvious why Zim would be calling people, he was in captivity and wanted to be rescued. It was way less obvious why anyone would answer.

Bri tapped his chin. "No. It honestly didn't occur to me."

"Hmm."

"Should I have asked him about her?"

Vaz considered this. "I don't think so. No... I have a better idea, I think. Zim's never really going to come over to our side, right? We reviewed his profile, he's too stubborn."

Bri's eyes lit up. "He's got a will coefficient of about 23.2. Computer projections indicate that he may be prone to intentionally reject things that don't fit into his worldview and resist any criticisms or incentives to change."

Eet's eyes were glazing over.

Vaz frowned. "Seriously? That's enough to qualify as defective right there. How has he even stayed alive this long?" Bri looked as if he were gearing up to speculate on that question at length. Vaz shook his head to forestall him. "That's not important now. Apparently he's willing to call for help when he needs it, though. Right?"

"Apparently."

"My point is, if we scare him into calling for rescue, we find out whether he really has a reliable helper or if he's just pestering this person. If she's reliable, she'll show up if he says he's in danger."

Bri tapped his foot against the floor. "What if she just calls the cops?"

"I just meant as a last resort. If we can't find out more about her any other way."

"That's a terrible plan," Eet said.

"Do you have any better ideas?" he snapped.

No one answered.

"That's what I thought." Vaz shook his head and stared at the floor. None of them were really cut out for this. The whole plan was probably going to fail in the end. He just felt like he had to do  _something..._

"Boss, if it all goes wrong we can always try again," Eet said.

He glanced up at her. Oh, she was just saying that. She was stuck with him if she didn't want to get arrested or executed. "Thanks," he said anyway, looking away. "How far away are we now?"

"A couple days or so, I think."

That seemed like way too long for nothing to go wrong, but they'd gotten this far.

* * *

"No, I won't." Zim's own voice was a familiar sound in this empty and clinical cell. "Yes, I will! No, I don't have anything to report-" Zim bit his lip. "Well, maybe."

"Are you talking to us?" the twins yelled.

What on Irk? Were those two still there? "No, I'm not!" He slammed his hand on the cot. "Leave me alone!"

"We wish we could!"

What a pain.

Zim pulled his notepad out of his Pak. Maybe he'd just scrawl a quick note to Tak. Nothing much, just enough to let her know he was still alive and was resisting the assaults on his psyche.

What was this flashing icon? He'd never seen it before. He tapped on it.

_New email._

Zim's antennae pricked upwards. Email? He'd never had one of those before. He opened it up.

_Zim, do not call me again to waste my time with showing me written messages on a portable device that can send email._

It was Tak! She'd contacted  _him!_ She'd chosen to contact him first!

He scribbled a quick message.

_TAK! THESE PEOPLE HAVE BECOME MORE INSANE THAN EVER! THIS GUY JUST TALKED TO ME ABOUT PHILOSOPHY FOR AN HOUR FOR NO REASON! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM?_

He hit 'send' and sat with the notepad on his lap, waiting for an answer.

She wasn't answering yet. That was okay, he could wait.

He squeezed the edges of the notepad. They felt warm and living from the body heat that had seeped in from being stored in his Pak. Tak had chosen to email him, and she had insinuated that he wanted to email her. Maybe she would be a decent ally after all. At least for the time being.

He had those fluttering feelings again. He put the notepad down on his lap, gritting his teeth. Captivity must be screwing with his brain. Or his enteric ganglia.

He pulled up the note on his notepad with the list of reasons why he didn't like Tak and read it over. Ah, yes. Exactly! Wow, what a great idea to compile this list of reminders to himself. Now he was sure to stay grounded and not enjoy talking to her too much.

She was a rival, after all. He couldn't start thinking of her as... not a rival.

What would Tak be if she wasn't his rival anyway? Invaders didn't have friends. Tak wasn't a washed-up little failure like Skoodge. She would never be content to live in Zim's base and follow him around like a SIR unit.

He heaved a sigh. 'Not a rival'. What a silly and strange thought- yes, definitely a side effect of confinement.

"What's the matter, Zim?"

He jumped. "Who's there?"

"Forget about us already?" the voice continued. Those twins. Yuck. "We can hear you moping in there." They mimicked his sigh. Zim despised them.

Although... Zim should question them. They were going to be hard to get information out of, but Zim was tenacious and efficient!

He walked up to the doorl. The twins were standing guard on each side of it. He could only see a tiny fraction of each of them. "Hello," he said.

"Hello, Zim."

"So you two want to be siblings, huh?"

"Did Bri tell you that?"

"Oh, he didn't want to, but I'm very persuasive."

"It's fake."

"Okay."

On his other side, the other twin leaned forward and pinched the little ridge of bone between her eyes. "We just happen to have been decanted from the same pod and have the same scores everywhere. We wound up flying the Massive together. We were good at it. Then the new Tallest show up, they're also copies but imperfect ones, and we bothered them for some reason-" It was not a good idea to call the Tallest imperfect. Zim checked over his shoulder for listeners out of habit. It wouldn't do to be party to treason.

No one was there, he was in a cell. Right.

That girl was still talking. "-sooo then we're fired together, and it's just... we had nothing to do but either bum around or get re-encoded as janitors."

"Everyone knows re-encoding is just for show," Zim dismissed.

Both of them leaned forward and turned to stare at him.

"You don't make any sense," one of them said. "You make such a big deal out of us being traitors but you break the law whenever you want. How's it different?"

Zim opened his mouth and closed it. There was no way he was going to have another long, stupid talk like the last one. He'd try to get information later.

He shook his head. "Never mind, you don't get it."

He sat back down on the cot.

"Want to help us get it?" the twin said. There was a definite edge to her voice.

"I see no point to that," Zim said. "Only tiresome discussion. I hate you and you hate me." He may as well try to convince Dib to let him take over Earth.

"Well. You may have a point there."

"Of course I do."

Any email from Tak?

No, no email from Tak. Ah well.

He'd wait.

It wasn't like he was going anywhere.


	7. Chapter 7

Tak had lost track of time. She checked her Pak.

She'd been borrowing this garage for about three hours. She had very quickly tired of this awful ship and decided to make improvements. So she had broken into a repair garage.

She was getting further and further away from the band of traitors. She'd have to catch up to them today. She had plenty of time left, it would be two days before they reached the Massive- if that was where they were going. She was fairly confident that it was. If not, there was nothing else important that was closer than two days out so it didn't really matter, time-wise.

More pressing was that the owner of the garage would probably show up within a few hours to start the work day.

She hopped into the ship and started the engine. It didn't exactly purr, but it'd do.

She checked her notepad. Nothing from Zim since his odd little 'someone talked to me for hours' missive, which she hadn't bothered to respond to. She would assume no news meant... if not good news, at least not bad news.

* * *

Zim had lost track of how much time had passed. It could have been weeks. Or months. Or even years. At seemingly random intervals a pack of rations was dropped into his cell. He had watched the entire series of Undercover Supervisor, Vortian Idol and Un-Survivor. At least he thought he had. Every episode of those awful shows felt like it lasted a whole year. Zim hated reality TV. Hated it. Hated the emotional manipulation and the obvious falseness.

Zim had never felt anything but disdain and occasional scornful amusement when watching TV. He didn't understand people who had feelings about fiction.

He lay on the cot and stared at the ceiling. He had lost the motivation to sit or stand or do anything. Tak had never replied to his missive. Had she abandoned him, or had she come to harm?

A sound. A knock on the door. He had not immediately recognized it.

He would have to respond. He sat up and faced the door. An Irken stood there.

"Hello, Zim?" he ventured. Zim knew him. Bri? "Ah, the twins told me you were rocking back and forth in the corner earlier. Are you all right?"

"I don't know. Yes, probably. I dunno."

Bri blinked at him. "How long has it been since someone spoke to you?"

Zim struggled to remember. It was like his brain was full of gears that hadn't been greased. "Dunno. Maybe it's been... forever."

"About an hour," a female voice muttered from just out of sight.

Bri tapped his lips. "Zim, you're under 200 years old, aren't you? Definitely well into the genetic engineering generation. Were you not engineered to handle solitary confinement?"

"I don't know." Probably not. He was born to be an Invader and erroneously encoded as a Frycook. Neither of those things were meant to be in prison all alone for hours.

His limbs felt heavy. He did not bother to look at Bri.

Bri sounded... uncomfortable. "This reaction doesn't seem, ah... normal. Have you had bad experiences with solitary confinement?"

"Never happened before."

Zim hugged his knees to his chest. The surrounding world seemed unfamiliar and unreal.

"You seem so disoriented," Bri said.

"I guess, whatever."

He heard low speaking. Then Bri appeared next to him on the cot.

Zim cringed away from him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

Zim sputtered. The world around him came to focus and he wondered how he could have gotten so distracted. He'd been alone for less than a day, and he was in perfect physical condition. "Get away from me!"

Bri edged away a little bit to give Zim more space. Not good enough. Zim seethed.

"Are you claustrophobic?" Bri asked.

"Me? Please."

"You were very disoriented a moment ago and I dare say, even depressed."

Zim scoffed. He remembered nothing of the sort.

"I've long suspected that Invaders are supplied with SIR units because of some psychological need for companionship that we aren't supposed to know we have. The image of Irkens as machinery is really false, you see-"

Zim felt his eyes glaze over.

Bri cleared his throat. "Ah, another time, perhaps. But that's not why I'm here, you see."

"Why are you here?"

"I thought you might want to see my laboratory, being a scientist yourself."

Zim did not want to see it, and he very nearly said so. But wait! This was a shining opportunity to get out of this box. He clasped his hands and pressed them against his chest. He felt the vibrations of his heartbeat through his sternum. "Oh, I would enjoy that." Yes, finally. This was finally turning around, as he knew it would. What luck!

"Good." Bri smiled. "I thought you would."

The door opened. Zim popped to his feet and followed Bri out into the hall. The twins watched him balefully as they went. He stuck his tongue out at them.

They were out in the hall now. Freedom! Zim turned to run, his feet moving on their own.

Bri caught his arm. Zim sucked in air through his teeth. The unwanted contact sent a surge of discomfort up his spine.

"It's right down here." Zim was led down the hall and into a brightly lit room.

He turned to inspect a specimen pinned to the wall with its skin flaps pulled away and its organs exposed. "Hmm," he said, grimacing at the smell of preservatives. "A rodent?"

"Yes, I find them interesting."

Zim found them generally more useful alive. The still and silent dead animal could not now provide the brainpower to animate a different animal, or haul around specialized machinery, or have its behavior altered to become an obedient spy or anything like that. But it was all in what you planned to do with things, he supposed.

Zim ran the tip of his tongue over dry lips that tasted like the residue of his last paste coating. He saw briefly himself pinned to a wall with his skin folded open and his inner tubing on display. Perhaps with his veins injected with brightly-colored latex, like this helpless animal.

Bri was speaking. "...some data, but nothing too helpful yet. Would you terribly mind sitting down there for a second?"

He was gesturing at a chair that had restraints on it.

"I don't think so," Zim said. He was feeling kinda clammy.

"Just for a second."

"No. Not there."

Bri looked from his face to the chair. "Oh, the restraints? You don't think I'd use those, do you? Certainly if I wanted you captive I could have left you in the cell in the first place."

That was a decent point...

Zim slowly, reluctantly sat down in the chair.

The restraints snapped closed. He gasped. His spine stiffened. "You lied to me!"

* * *

Vaz heard screaming just down the hall. Zim. He sounded angry and terrified. It must be working.

Skulk had come completely back to his senses an hour ago and started talking. Zim had not only been talking to someone who would help him, she had already broken him out of his cell once. That explained how the cell had been opened from the outside. They had formerly thought that Zim had sent a wireless signal to open the door, but they should have known that was a little out of his capabilities.

They just had not expected Zim to have anyone so firmly on his side as to do all that.

If there were any circumstances under which Zim would phone for help, this should be it. Every Invader heard about how they could be taken apart for science by the natives of a planet. All of them were afraid of it. Zim seemed to be prone to mood swings, too.

Vaz folded his arms over his chest. He did not think much of Zim so far. He was amusing and interesting but seemed to have the brains of a flea and the manners of a mosquito. Still, it wasn't very comfortable to hear him scream like that...

Vaz would have to get over that. He had plans for Zim, after all.

* * *

Zim pulled against the restraints. The room was a little chilly but he was drenched in sweat.

Bri looked him up and down. "I find the fear response fascinating, don't you?"

"I'm not afraid of you! How dare you do this to me? I am an Irken Invader! I'm on a special mission from the Tallest. They assigned me personally to this mission. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Probably not, traitor and all. "Let me go! Let me go right away!"

"I'm afraid I can't... there's only one of you, after all. I'll never get a research subject like you again."

"But- b-but- I'm an Irken. I'm physically just a normal Irken! There's nothing especially amazing about my physical shell." It was slightly flawed, even. "You don't have to dissect it."

"I can't just take your word for that."

"This can't be what your group had planned for me! You're going against your leader! He'll stop you!" ZIm pulled against the restraints. "Vaz! Twin things! Eet! Your- companion is being a troublemaker! Arrest and destroy him or whatever it is you people do!"

Bri tapped his foot, waiting for Zim to finish yelling. He looked so calm.

"I'm afraid I soundproofed this room," he said.

Zim gasped. "You can't do that! You can't cut me open!" He pulled at the restraints a little harder. "I didn't come all this way from my assigned planet just to die at the hands of someone who didn't even stalk me first!"

"You're not going to die." Bri leaned over him. "I'm just going to look around. And there is no one you can call for help."

Oh! "W-well, if I'm not going to die I can withstand anything! Do what you will!"

Bri blinked and glanced over his shoulder. "Actually, I might kill you after all! That would mean you could never return to your mission or earn the admiration of your peers by completing it."

"No! Let me out! You can't do this!"

"There is no way out, unless someone comes to your rescue, which they won't."

Zim was beginning to hyperventilate. GIR was too far away... and GIR didn't have the ship because Tak had it!

Wait, Tak. Would she be able to save him in time? Would she come for him at all? She- she wasn't even answering his emails.

There was only one way to find out. He got the communicator out of his Pak.

Bri put his hands to his face. "Goodness! What are you doing?"

Zim would have to make this call fast before someone confiscated the communicator.

* * *

Tak had a call. Darn. She'd thought he'd gotten the point about email.

She answered. "What?"

She flinched as his voice filled the interior of the ship. "Tak! They've hauled me away for some sick experiment! They're going to try to kill me. If you're really on my side you have to come get me or it's all over!"

"What? Are you sure about that? Don't you think maybe something completely normal is happening and you're just misinterpreting?" She had... stuff to do.

"Misinterpreting? I'm strapped into a chair and there's a crazy person with a knife! Hey! HEY! Back off! Back-"

His end of the line went dead.

Tak sighed. All right.

She checked the navigation information and swallowed hard. She wouldn't be there for an hour. Zim had better die slowly.

* * *

Bri stared down at him with clinical coldness.

Sweat had soaked his uniform and was dripping off his chin onto his collarbone. He would be sweaty and grimy and there was no shower in his cell. Oh, wait, never mind, he'd be dead.

Bri poked at Zim with the scalpel. He twisted away, whimpering.

"Is there anyone else you're going to try to call?"

Zim bared his teeth. "She'll be here! And she'll destroy you!"

"Okay. Who is she?"

"Ha! You'll find out!"

"Why is she helping you?"

"Because what you're doing is horrible and it must be stopped!"

"What's her title?"

"Ha! You'll get nothing out of me." Besides, Zim had no idea. Tak wasn't officially an Invader, he knew that much.

Where was she? It would be too late if she didn't show up.

Bri looked apologetic. Zim was going to tear him limb from limb when he escaped.

Tak wasn't coming. She had never really wanted to help Zim, had she? She must have had some scheme she was working. And he'd actually trusted her for a second even though he knew he couldn't trust anyone. His insides felt cold and gloppy.

Would it be very unpleasant to die? What would happen afterwards? How long would it take to die?

Bri shook his head. "I'm not really going to do anything to you."

"Eh... what?"

"I'm not going to dissect you. We were just frightening you into revealing who you're working with."

Zim lay back for a minute, considering this. They had tricked him. And he had fallen for it.

He strained against the restraints. "You little! I'm gonna!" He growled and spat. "Traitors! Get me outta this chair! I'm going to show you the wrath of an Irken Invader!"

Bri backed away a little bit. "Vaz, I can't let him out now. He's quite angry. I think he'll be violent... I'm not a physical person. I was bred for science."

"I'll get help," was the muffled reply from outside.

So he'd been there the whole time, too? And the room had never been soundproofed! So many lies!

* * *

Zim was hauled back to his cell, spitting and clawing, by a combination of Eet and the twins. They threw him in and slammed the door shut. He threw himself against the door. It did not give at all.

He backed away, scowling. They peered in at him.

"You couldn't even get out of that cell by yourself, she busted you out," Eet mused. "I'd love to meet her. She'd probably be more fun to fight than you are. It's too bad she's not coming."

Zim sputtered. He was trembling with rage. He couldn't think of any good retorts. "I hate you!"

Then they all turned their backs and walked away. So now that they knew Zim hadn't escaped on his own they didn't even think he needed a guard.

"You-" Zim scrabbled at the door to no avail. He kicked it. He fumed. "Stupid Tak!"

* * *

Okay. Tak was almost there. Hopefully Zim had not been in a hurry to die.

She attempted to call him. He didn't pick up. Drat. Drat, drat. Filth. He could be gone. She should have known that she couldn't ever take time out for herself. There were too many things she was responsible and no one else was going to do them.

Their ship was just up ahead. This time she couldn't spend precious time on being stealthy. She had to break right in.

So she did.

She rammed her ship into the side of the saucer, bashing in one of the sides. She was now in a hallway. She proceeded along this hallway until she encountered a man with a robot arm.

He stared at her. "Hey! I don't know you."

"Correct! I'm looking for Zim. Where is he?" she growled, slamming him up against the wall.

"Hey! Calm down! Lemme go! Hey!"

He punched her in the gut with his robotic arm. She staggered, recovered quickly and pinned him with her Pak.

He wove his Pak implements through hers and pulled, to no avail. She was stronger and she knew better how to apply force. She had him firmly in her clutches.

"Okay," he said in a trembling voice. "Okay, hold up, I don't have any money and I don't have no job."

She would not remark on that bit of patheticness. "Where is Zim? Is he stil alive? If he's dead I'm going to kill-" Bit late to kill him. "I'm going to destroy all of his possessions and make it as if he'd never existed!"

"He's in the cell! He's in the cell!"

She ran down the hall, dragging her captive after her.

Two more Irkens appeared in front of her. The identical ones. She threw her captive at one of them. The other darted around and dove at Tak. Off balance, she lurched to the side and into another Irken that had appeared out of nowhere from the side.

Electrical voltage shot through her body. She lay on the ground, immobilized. and twitching. "How-" she sputtered.

A boot landed on her chest. The Irken standing above her looked familiar. Zim's kidnapper. She had entered from a door Tak had not noticed, off to the left.

This newcomer looked disgusted. "Most dangerous game my eye. Irkens are the easiest prey there is!"

"Excuse me? You got lucky!" Tak spat.

* * *

"I took out three of your group single-handed before you stopped me! And you ambushed me! I am not easy prey!"

Her captor did not reply.

Tak hit the floor. The kidnapper had kicked her over. And her foot had connected somewhat lower than her Pak. Tak growled. "How dare you?"

The door slammed shut. The woman that had caught Tak- solidly built, with blue eyes, about an inch or so taller- glanced from Tak to somewhere behind Tak. "Well I'll be deleted. You really did have a partner. I thought Invaders worked alone. Gosh, you are  _bad_ at your job."

Tak looked up. Zim was sitting in the back of the room on a small, broken-down, ripped-up cot. He appeared unhurt. "Him? He's not a real Invader!" She turned back to the kidnapper. "Get out of here! I don't want to look at your horrible face anymore!"

She shrugged and sat down on the floor with her back to Tak. "Gotta guard you two."

Tak fumed.

Zim was staring at her. "You came? You actually came?"

"Yes!" Tak snarled. "And you're not dead! You're not even in danger! Do you realize what this means, Zim? You've ruined everything! For nothing!"

"Eh!" Zim looked her up and down with wide, disbelieving eyes. "You're here after all!"

"Yes! Well done, I'm standing here talking to you. How perceptive!" She trembled. She wanted to slap him. Maybe she would.

"I... but... you didn't come when I was in danger, you're here now!"

"I was held up!" She had not been slacking off. This had not been supposed to happen. It wasn't her fault! "And it clearly wasn't real danger because you're fine!"

He hedged and stammered and said "Maybe I had to get  _myself_  out of it when you didn't show up!"

"If you could get yourself out of it, I wasted my time coming here!"

"Hey! Excuse me? I have a very important-"

"Mission?"

"Yes!"

"No! There is no mission!" Tak snapped. "You fool! You have nothing to get back to! Your life is in the toilet! You are a joke! A fool! A blithering idiot! I am lowering myself by even speaking with you!"

Zim paused, pulling away from her and blinking. "Why do you keep insisting on telling me this?"

"Because it's true!"

"Is it because I succeeded in procuring a mission and you didn't?"

Tak's jaw dropped. "You're unbelievable."

"It's sad, Tak. You could be a very good Inventor. Or maybe a pilot. Or... something. But instead you continue pursuing me when I will defeat you at every turn? You could be successful on your own, you know!"

Tak turned away, leaning her forehead against the wall. "This is pointless." She had had her chance to benefit from this and it had gone south. Now what? "I have to escape."

"But we don't know their plan!"

"I didn't say you were going to escape."

"But-"

"Be quiet, Zim. Let me think."

"Fine. I will be quiet. But only because I have nothing more to say to you!"

"Yes, whatever." She had her tools and all her new materials. She believed she could escape easily.

The kidnapper spoke up then. "I'm right here. If you get out of there I'll just stun you again. I'll put you out, too. His legs were out for hours when I first got him."

"Of course you will," Tak muttered.

"Shut up, Eet," Zim snapped. So that was her name. That was an awful name.

Tak rubbed her temples. "Ugh! Now what?"

"Oh well," Zim sighed. He ambled up to the control panel on the wall and turned on the TV.

She grabbed his arm. "Don't you dare!"

"What? There's nothing to do now but wait and see what their plan is. Then we can foil it!"

"I can hear you!" Eet yelled.

"Too bad!" Zim hollered back at her. "There's nothing you can do about it! Ha!" He turned to Tak. "That's what I'm doing. You can do whatever you want, of course."

She looked him over. Up close he looked a little shaken, though clearly physically undamaged. "Why?" she snapped. "Why did you call me? Everything was going perfectly well and then you sent it all crashing down!"

"They threatened me!"

"Ugh!"

"We strapped him down and threatened him with a knife until he called for help," Eet volunteered. "He cracked like an egg!"

"Is that so." Tak scowled. Zim was incredibly gullible. They could easily have used him like a wet mop.

She turned and looked at him. "Was there really a knife to your throat?"

"I told you I was going to die," he said. "But I handled it."

"We were never really going to kill him," Eet said.

Perhaps Zim was not really the one to blame here, or at least not the only one. This group was simply more intelligent than Tak had suspected and knew how make him their pawn.

But still-

She rounded on Zim. "Why can't you detect one single lie?"

"Hey! It was very convincing!"

"And why did you give in to them?"

"You fool! They didn't  _tell_ me they were tricking me! They just threatened me until I thought it was calling you or dying! They told vicious lies to Zim! They're evil!"

"This is still your fault!" she insisted.

"No-"

"Can't you just one time admit that something may have been your fault?"

"This was not my fault! You said to call you!"

She punched his shoulder. He flinched and grabbed the site of her punch. "Ow!"

He pouted.

In fact, he looked somewhat hurt. He had reacted to pain with something besides surprise or imbecilic shock. That was a first.

The surprise had paused her anger and... not dissipated it, but made it controllable. She was able to refrain from injuring him further.

"Don't you have any better ideas than staying here until something just, I don't know, falls into your lap, is that it?" she said.

"We could escape!"

"We've discussed that!"

Zim turned and studied the door- and Eet sitting in front of it- with his head tilted back disdainfully. "Maybe with both of us, we could overpower the whole crew."

"Together. With you. Yes, I'm so sure."

"But you're the one who was sooo committed to saving the Tallest. Remember, I said-"

He  _had_ said-

"That was then," she said, "and this is now."

"Okay. All right. Got any ideas now, Tak?"

"We'll-" She sputtered. "I'll think!""

Nothing was immediately coming to mind.

"You ruined this and you should fix it," she grumbled. But he couldn't. Because he was stupid. Blech.

Time passed. Tak paced. Zim lay on the cot on his back propped up on the pillow and watched TV. And chewed gum.

She stood over him. If he smacked that gum one more time...

He held out the pack of gum. "Want one?"

What? "No!"

"It's spearmint."

"Ooh, really? Spearmint! Well, then-"

He offered the pack again.

"No!" she spat. "That was sarcasm!"

"Oh." He shook the pack of gum at her with dramatic flair. "I wasn't really going to give you any anyway! Ha!"

She turned away. "Whatever!"

She paced back and forth.

Zim smacked his gum.

She kicked the leg of the cot, making it shake. He sat up, hunched over. "Hey!"

"Isn't there something we can do to get someone in here to question them?" Tak demanded.

"No! Feel free to go talk to Eet over there. She's useless."

Tak walked up to the door. Eet had headphones on and was bouncing her head in time to the music. "I don't think she can hear me," Tak muttered.

"Ooh, she's not supposed to do that," Zim said. "They're supposed to listen in in case we do anything."

"I don't care what she's supposed to do!"

Zim got off the cot and scurried over to the TV control panel. He changed the channel. "There's nothing good on."

Tak shook her head.

Zim landed on The Mateless and made a face.

"Leave it on that one," she said, despite herself.

He glared at her. "Why? It's so stupid."

"Stupid!"

"Yes! It's supposed to be real, but it's not! They're just acting like fools for the camera. It's fake."

She strode over and stood over him. She laughed. He blinked.

"Zim, have you ever been in front of a camera?"

"Yes."

"And were you making a pathetic attempt to seem impressive when you were in front of the camera?"

"Y- no! What?"

Tak pointed at the TV screen. "This show is a perfect demonstration of how lesser species sanitize their lives to create an easy-to-follow narrative that doesn't exist. And of how blustering fools like yourselves attempt to be bigger than they are in front of a camera. It's fascinating!"

Zim stared at the TV. He was probably not smart enough to get it.

"Don't you see, Zim, reality TV shows us life as someone wishes it was. It's endlessly entertaining if you're intelligent enough to understand. Of course, I should have known you wouldn't be."

"It's like wrestling?"

"Eh?"

"Humans dress up like warriors and pretend to hurt each other." Zim pounded his fist into his hand. "They're too weak to inflict real violence, so they fake it. And everyone knows it's fake but they don't care because it's incredible! I'll show you when we get back to Earth."

No one had ever responded to Tak's opinions with an opinion of their own before, unless it was to tell her she wasn't repairing something the right way.

"Hello!"

This was a new voice. Zim hissed when he heard it.

Tak turned. A new person was standing there. Scrawny and gawky, with goggles on. He had 'Inventor' stamped all over him. Tak didn't like Inventors. They were useless nerds.

Zim made an angry humming noise. "You! Bri! You tricked me!"

"Ah, yes," Bri said. "I am sorry about that. We needed to figure out who you were, Miss...?"

"Never mind what my name is, I won't be here long," Tak said.

Zim stomped up to the door. "How dare you?"

Bri held his palms up in a gesture of goodwill. Well, he had to. He was a twig. Tak could snap him like one if she wasn't behind this wall. "I am very sorry. You are an Invader, aren't you? You know that deception is a necessary part of a mission."

Zim puffed up with indignation. "But- you- you're Irken! And I outrank you!" That was a funny idea of rank he had there. Zim was at least a full head shorter than Bri and he was encoded as a Frycook to boot.

Also what kind of fantasy world was Zim living in where people weren't plotting to betray him? But that wasn't important now. "Listen," Tak said to Bri. "You do not want me as an enemy."

Zim nodded fervently. She squinted at him. "Stay out of this."

He looked up at her. "Huh?"

Bri looked from Tak to Zim and back again. "May I ask how you ended up working together?"

They both started trying to answer at once.

"She broke into my base-" "Working together is a bit of a strong term-" "We take threats to the Tallest very seriously-" "I don't think anyone needs to know about this-" "It's only temporary."

Bri's eyes lit up in a way Tak did not like. "Fascinating."

"Exactly how is that fascinating?" Tak demanded.

"Did you know it's a misconception that Irkens cannot love or become infatuated with each other? In fact, it's less a misconception and more outright propaganda-"

Tak did not like this turn of the conversation at all. "What are you talking about?"

"I was just pointing out," Bri said, "that it's not even illegal to date. Office clerks-" There were Irken office workers? Tak had never heard of that. "-and Inventors with sufficient social contact and free time often form platonic friendships and even romantic relationships and even-"

"The twins told me you're full of it, by the way," Zim said. "They said you were making up lies to Zim."

Bri waved this off. "That's often said about visionaries or those who have made discoveries that threaten the social order."

Zim rubbed his chin. "Visionaries, you say?..."

"All right, no offense," Tak said, "but you seem completely insane. Is there something specific you wanted? Because I'm going to ask you to leave."

"Oh, certainly, I can leave," Bri said. "I've been busy anyway, fixing the damage you caused when you broke in here."

"Ah, yes, I hope it takes you years to fix it!"

"Sorry, I'm almost done. I'll be seeing you!"

"Don't come back!"

Bri left. Zim turned to Tak. "You see! You see what I've been having to deal with?"

"That was highly obnoxious and strange," Tak said. "I hate to agree with you, but there it is."

"Yeah, right?" Zim laughed awkwardly. "Yeah." He looked away.

"And why did he bring up love?" she said. "Does he think you... fancy me or something?" It was a stupid thought, but marginally less stupid than him thinking Tak fancied Zim.

"What? No! Of course not! That's preposterous! No!" Zim looked frantic.

Tak looked him over. She found she was smirking. There was something... faintly amusing about the idea of him pining for her while she rose to success and he stayed mired in failure. And she would never lower herself to his level. Ever. He would just pine for her forever. And then die.

He  _should_  like Tak. She was incredible. No Irken had ever liked her before, even though they should. Because she was so incredible.

Wait. Him develop a genuine crush on her? Or anyone? That was an insane thought. She looked away.

"Why, Tak? What if I did?" he said. "Huh? What would you do if I did, hmm?"

"I would..." She considered this. "I would slap you."

"Oh." He gulped. "I see. Well, I don't like you."

"Okay."

"I've never liked you."

"I understand."

"I will never like you."

"That's good."

Zim wandered around in an aimless little circle and wound up sitting back down on the cot.

Tak inspected the door and the walls.

"I already looked at that. You can't get out," he said.

"Uh huh." She would just inspect them again herself.

There seemed to be no way out.

She looked at the control panel.

"I already looked at that," Zim said. "It doesn't do anything but control the TV and you can't get it out of the wall."

"Uh huh." She would just inspect it again herself.

It was just as he'd said. She sighed a little.

"Dib says that same thing about visionaries," Zim said to himself. "Ha!"

"Really. He has a point. His people seem to give the actually insane the same treatment as the unusually perceptive."

Zim frowned at her. "You're kidding, right?"

"Surely even you can tell that Dib has a lot to contribute to his society that they just won't accept," she said.

Zim stared at her in horror. "What, do you have sympathy for Dib or something?"

"No! It's simply true, Zim."

"Oh. Oh, yes." He looked thoughtful for a minute and then giggled to himself. "Yes... if even one of those horrible humans listened to him for a second, they could save themselves from their horrible doom! But they won't! And they can't!"

"Right," she said.

"It's funny."

Perhaps. In a cruel way. "I don't think there's a way out of this cell."

"I already told you there wasn't."

She sighed. She backed up a little bit and sat down where she had a good view of the TV set.

* * *

"They'd make a cute couple," Bri said.

Hik shook her head and refused to look at him.

"Both very stubborn. Her will coefficient is 25.1!"

"Uh huh." Ka rolled her eyes. "Pass me that wrench, please."

He handed it to her. He had ben doing literally nothing but handing them tools. Not very helpful. "And they're both very intelligent!"

Hik raised her eyebrows. "Zim's intelligent? He doesn't seem super intelligent to me."

"Naivety and self-delusion aren't the same as unintelligence," Bri said.

That seemed like it hardly mattered. "They're just as bad."

"Or worse, perhaps! But anyway, don't you think they're compatible?"

Ka didn't really care so much about this but it was probably better to let Bri talk himself out. "Uh huh," she said flatly.

"They're physically matched as well, similar in size, and I think she finds him attractive. She kept looking at his antennae."

Ka doubted this very much.

"They would have very interesting willful and intelligent children-"

Ka threw down the wrench. "Ew! Geez, Bri! Stop it!"

"What?" Bri demanded. "It's only natural to-"

"No! It's not natural! It's sick and wrong! I don't want to hear about this!"

"They are a male and a female and historically and biologically the purpose of a heterosexual coupling has always been to-"

"I'm going to throw this hammer at you if you don't quit it!" Hik said. "It's not funny anymore, Bri! Stop! Yuck!"

Bri looked a little offended. "Fine."

Ka bent down to retrieve her wrench. She heard footsteps. She looked up. Eet was approaching.

"Aren't you on guard duty?" Hik asked.

"Rikk took over for me." Eet leaned back onto one hip, tapping her foot. "Guys, did you think any more about my backup plan?"

Ka tapped the wrench against her palm. "Yes."

Hik continued her answer without prompting. "We think it sounds kinda... not all that great."

Bri shrugged and spread his hands out. "Honestly, I think you should know the answer to this yourself. You never even proposed your plan to Vaz."

"He'd say no."

"Exactly. Perhaps you should consider why it is that you are so certain he would say no."

Eet shrugged. "Well, it doesn't matter. I can pull off the whole thing myself if I have to. Have fun fixing that."

Ka shook her head. That backup plan had better never need to happen.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tak's opinions are not my own
> 
> i swear the insanely long monologues are not author rants

"You see how they're forcing this love story between two people who have never met each other before and will likely separate a week later?" Tak gestured at the screen. "These people are obsessed with romantic relationships between people they don't even know or people who don't even exist! Why is that? Hmm?" Tak launched into her explanation without waiting for a reply. "It's because they're obsessed with their own desires. If you see someone else achieving something, you either resent them for it or you believe that means you can achieve it. Even if it was all false. Even if it's impossible! That's why. The point of all this is to either make the audience feel that their horrible lives aren't as bad as these freaks or to make them beieve there's some opportunity for improvement."

Something light hit the floor.

"What was that?" Tak said.

Zim stood up, dusting himself off. "Looks like they've given us a ration pack."

He picked it up off the ground and sat back down next to Tak. He opened the ration pack. "Do you want the red or the purple?"

"Red."

He turned it so the red side faced her. She pulled out the stick, licked it and dipped it into the powder.

He started eating the other stick, smacking audibly. She looked away, slurping flavored powder off of the stick.

Standard rations weren't very good. She'd give her psi implant for a latte or even just a decent sandwich.

"Well, anyway," she muttered. How long had she been merrily chattering about nothing while he just sat there? "What time is it?"

"I don't know."

"How much of this have we watched?"

"A lot."

"How long do you think it will be until we reach our destination?"

"No idea!"

So she had just been sitting there, talking about nothing, while Zim- being completely indifferent to her opinion, obviously- had quietly faded out of her consciousness and become a warm body. She'd said far too much to him.

Someone was knocking on the door. Zim groaned aloud. "What do YOU want?"

A new voice: "I'd like to talk to your friend there, if she doesn't mind."

"She does mind, Vaz! She doesn't want to be disturbed by your horrible criminal antics."

Vaz... the ringleader. "Stop, Zim," Tak said. "I do want to talk to him."

Zim flicked an antenna. "Don't! He's horrible."

"I'm going to talk to him."

"Okay, but don't."

Ignoring him, she walked up to Vaz. "So, all of this is your doing," she said.

"So to speak. I apologize for not speaking to you sooner, I had a mess to clean up."

She leaned back and studied him. A few inches taller than herself. Green eyes. An air of assurance that she did not trust. In her experience, assurance like that was a front. "And what do you have to say to me?"

"What's your story? Why are you helping him?"

"Don't tell him anything, Tak!" Zim snapped behind her. Geez. Of course she wasn't going to.

"I have a duty to my Tallest," she sad. "I'm not helping  _him_  per se."

"I see." He smirked at her. Her eyes narrowed. "Another loyalist, then."

"Of course."

"It's a shame, you'd be a great addition to my team."

"Of course." She raised an eyebrow. "I hear you told Zim the same thing."

"If he honestly wanted to join I'd give him a fair trial." Zim had already had a fair trial. And he'd been sentenced to death. It hadn't worked out. "Unfortunately for him he's pretty transparent- it was painfully obvious that he was trying to plot against us."

Of course he was transparent. It was insane that he'd survived as an Invader for any length of time. Tak wasn't going to insult him in front of this traitor, though. At least Zim was loyal. And his shortcomings were so obvious there was no point in discussing them. She'd insult Zim later.

"What's your name?" Vaz asked. "What's your story?"

She snorted. "Ask Zim! I'm sure he'll squeal like a pig."

"Actually there wasn't much we could get out of him. He said your name when he called you, but that was it."

"Mm," she said. "What about you? What are you intending for the Tallest?"

"Nothing too serious. Don't worry about it too much." He checked his watch. "We'll be there in about twelve hours and then you can find out for yourself."

Seriously? She'd been watching TV for that long? Ten hours had passed since she'd gotten here, by her estimation. Wow.

"Whatever your plan is we won't go along with it," Zim piped in.

"That's true," she said. "We won't!"

"That's fine." Vaz shrugged. "How you doing, do you have everything you need?"

"Yes, we're quite all right, thanks." She could ask for her latte but that would be embarassing.

Zim cleared his throat. "Do you have a shower?" He did somewhat need one. She hadn't wanted to say anything because it was gross.

"Sorry, can't actually let you out to use it," Vaz said. "Need anything else?"

Zim scowled. "No."

"Gotcha. Well, see you in a bit, then."

He walked away.

"He never gave me anything either. Ugh! Hate him," Zim said.

Tak leaned against the wall. "I suppose we... really will just be waiting to see what happens." Her words hung in the air. An indictment of her own failure.

"Uh huh," said Zim. "So... more TV?"

He was not smiling but he hardly seemed unhappy with the situation.

"I suppose, if it's still on."

"It is! It's a marathon." He sat down on the floor by the rations pack they'd been eating and pointed to the place where she'd been sitting.

She raised an eyebrow. "All right."

There wasn't much else to do.

"GIR makes me watch this stuff all the time," he said as she sat down beside him.

"Oh, does he?" What was she supposed to say to that?

"Yeah." He licked the rations stick. "Yeah... he doesn't talk about it like you do."

That was a hint to her to shut up, wasn't it? "Fine, I'll stop talking."

"Why?"

"Wasn't-" Hold on. She didn't like Zim! She wasn't going to do what he wanted even if he did want her to shut up. "Never mind, Zim. I will continue talking!"

"Okay."

But she had nothing to say about the show at the moment. "Why do you keep GIR?"

"GIR is my SIR unit!"

"But he's horrible!"

"GIR's not horrible! He's a mighty weapon! He puts up a horrible facade to fool the enemy. You were fooled." Zim dipped the candy stick into the powder and tucked it back into his mouth.

"Hmmm." That sounded implausible. However, GIR had been able to do horrible things to MiMi. Remotely, even. "If you say so."

"I do say so."

She looked up at the TV for a moment. There was a commercial on for some kind of new jelly bean.

"That's all lies," Zim said, gesturing at the screen. "That stuff is horrible! I tried some and I got sick everywhere."

"Ew."

"I know! Why do the manufacturers lie, Tak?"

"They want money."

"Oh. Yes! That's correct."

No one had ever talked to her for this long before. And about nothing of consequence. She was starting to get the feeling that Zim enjoyed what she had to say, or something. It was weird.

"By the way, I have your stupid medicine," she said, pulling the bottle out of her Pak.

"My medicine?" He took the bottle and looked at the label. "Oh, these."

"Ergh. Yes, the antacids, I found them in your ship." Tak looked away. What had she expected? A display of gratitude?

Zim put them in his pocket. "I don't need them  _that_ often."

She probably was not going to care about the answer to this, but she couldn't resist- "Do you have other medicine, Zim?"

He hesitated and glanced away from her face. "No! What would I need it for?"

"I honestly don't know."

"I don't." He pointed at the TV again. "What's that about?"

"What's what about?"

"That puppet! That puppet doesn't make me want to buy soap."

"Oh, that's absurd on purpose! You see-"

As she got talking, she noticed Zim was watching her more than the TV. Also, he had very large, very expressive, clear berry-colored eyes, and...

She started to avoid looking at his face.

Time passed. They ate food, watched TV, talked about nothing. Talked about plans. Inventions. Things. Tak had not had much opportunity to waste away time like this. It wasn't exactly unpleasant. Even with the company she had.

She could never reveal what had happened here to anyone. Luckily, no one would believe Zim, so her secret was safe with him.

Eventually there was a knock on the door. They'd reached their destination.

They were escorted out of the cell by the entire group, with Eet's stun gun trained on them the whole time.

Having been imprisoned in a small box in front of a TV set for so long, Tak found the hallway strange to navigate, as if it were too large, as if she didn't know what to do with her legs. Zim was blinking and staring at things as if he'd just woken up.

They were ushered to the exit and made to stand against the wall while the entire group circled around. There was Skulk, the one Tak had knocked unconscious. There was Rikk, the one with the robot arm and the scowl. Bri the insane monologuer, the twins, Eet, and their leader standing in the center. No one was speaking. They all seemed tense.

"Well, Zim, Tak," Vaz said, "it's time to say goodbye. Rikk, you're the only one here with a personal vendetta against Zim. Do you want to do the honors?"

Rikk stepped forward. Zim raised his hand to strike and Tak caught his wrist, shaking her head.

"But he's going to do something to me!" Zim fumed.

"There are seven of them. And Eet will paralyze you at the slightest provocation. Just be calm."

"Be  _calm?"_

"Just try it."

Vaz nodded. "She's right, you know. Listen to her."

Zim ground his teeth but he let Rikk place something around his neck and give him a mocking salute.

Then Rikk stepped up to Tak.

"Oh, I get one too, do I?" she said.

Everyone looked uncomfortable.

"Well, we can't just let you go," Vaz explained.

"Sure," she said. "Yes, yes, do your worst..."

A slim, cold thing went around her neck. Some kind of wire, she thought.

"Well." Vaz's hand hovered over the switch that opened the door. "I guess this is farewell."

The door opened. Eet stepped forward and pushed them both out of the ship.

Tak fell onto a hard concrete surface. Zim landed on top of her a moment later and out of reflex she kicked him into the wall.

He lay crumpled up on the floor. She looked him over. He was stunned, but not hurt. Tak was not hurt and not stunned.

She took in their surroundings. Some kind of docking bay. It was empty.

Zim struggled to a seated position and shook his head. "Where are we?"

She began to tell him her observations, but he cut her off. "This is the Massive!"

He got up and started running. She took off after him. "Hey! Where are you going?"

He was already halfway up a ladder she hadn't even noticed yet. He turned, bright-eyed. "To see the Tallest! Come on, Tak! The Tallest!"

"What!" She grabbed his ankles. What, did he think this was some kind of outing? Let alone the audacity it took to think the Tallest would give him an audience!

He struggled. "Hey!"

"You can't just run off and see the Tallest! You don't even have an appointment!"

"Oh, they'll see  _me._ C'mon, Tak!"

"Did you not notice that there's some metal thing around your neck? This is obviously part of their plan! They probably expected you to go see the Tallest! This is what they want you to do!"

Zim hung on the ladder. She could see the struggle in his face. On some level, he must realize she was correct, which was more than she'd been expecting. But he also wanted to ignore her and do whatever he wanted to do. "But-"

"No!" The best way to deal with him was probably to head him off before he could settle into a rut of denial. "Look at me. Come down this ladder, Zim. Yes, come to me, Zim, you little fool."

He stood before her now with his arms folded and his face mulish. She noted that giving him an alternate course of action was slightly more productive than simply telling him what not to do. "Look at me! What's this that they put around my neck?"

He peered at it. "Some kind of metal cord, I don't know."

"Yes, that's what's around yours as well. Now, obviously, these are bad things! We have to figure out what they're for and remove them before we do anything else."

"Hnnngh- okay! Fine, I'll see what this is about and then I'll go see the Tallest." He took the cord around Tak's neck into his hands. She froze. She could feel his warm breath on her neck, he was standing so close.

It was an eternity before he finished his inspection and spoke up. "I don't know what it is, it just looks like wire."

"It's obviously not plain wire. They wouldn't bother with that."

"I know that!"

"Here, let me look at yours."

She took the cord around his neck and examined it. She turned it back and forth in her hands. It had fused shut around his neck and was too short to go over his head.

"You must have been issued scanning devices at some point," she said. She had never made many scanners and did not have any on her person at the moment.

"They'll only tell me what it's made of. That has nothing to do with what it does."

"There might be some clue we can get from knowing what's in it. Scan the things anyway."

Zim did so and read off the report his scanner had given him. "95% steel, 5% copper."

"That means nothing."

"I told you! Hey, what if we ask the Tallest-"

"No! What if these are designed to explode on contact with the Tallest?"

He gasped. "Assassinate the Tallest?" He covered his mouth with his hands and looked around for any eavesdroppers. No one was around, of course.

"There might be something in there that will detonate if we just break them," Tak mused. "Maybe we can construct a better scanner, or something, so we know better what we're dealing with! What do you have in your Pak?"

"Hmm, hmm..." He started pulling things out of his Pak. A few minutes later there was a huge pile of crap on the floor.

"Interesting things to carry around," she said dryly, nudging some kind of rubber toy pig with the toe of her boot.

"Don't touch my stuff!" Zim glared up at her. "What do you have?"

A few minutes later there was much larger pile of crap on the floor next to Zim's pile of garbage.

"These things are useful," Tak insisted. "Not like your things!

"Uh huh. Sure they are. Hey!" He pointed at something in her pile. "Is that a gene imprinter? I haven't seen one in years!"

"Yes, I found it." She would just tuck that back into her Pak. It wasn't going to be relevant.

Zim was gazing up at her with envy. She turned away and sorted through her pile. "Here! I have this voltage meter..."

"I have a radiation detector."

A few minutes later, with various gadgets and odds and ends, they had determined that the collars each contained a radio receiver and a tracker- and in addition, there was an explosive device on Zim's collar.

Zim was starting to sweat. "What! Why do I get the explosive device?"

"Your concern for my safety has been duly noted."

"Of course you'll be safe! You're Tak! Tak, help me get this off my neck. Please!"

"You certainly become more polite when your life is in danger."

He tugged at the collar. "Maybe! I don't want to  _die_ , Tak!"

"Do you see now that I was right?" she said. "They were intending for you to run up to the Tallest and start chatting with them. Then you would have all exploded. I believe the radio is for Vaz to explain his horrible ideology to the room first, before blowing them up."

"He never did tell me what his ideology was."

"Clearly, these will trigger when they see that we're close to the Tallest. We can go there now and find out what he has planned, if you'd like. Hear whatever speech he's intending to give. And then die, of course."

"No! That's fine." He tugged at the collar again. "If you won't remove this I'll do it."

"Don't do that! You can't see what you're doing. You'll end up triggering the detonation. I'll help you, just hold still."

He sat there silent and trembling. She could feel the fear tensing the surface of his skin as she worked on the collar. It was no wonder that he was frightened, if she made one wrong move he would explode and die.

"Don't worry, Zim! I was a Mechanic for years before I entered Invader training. You're much safer with me than you are with... that horrible robot you live with. You never did quite explain your robot."

"He was a gift from the Tallest."

"He's horrible."

"Gift from the Tallest. Can't get rid of him." Despite her words, he was still trembling.

Tak thought that was a waste of fear. She had perfect faith in her abilities.

Of course, if Zim made one wrong move, and made her hands slip, she could still cause the explosive to go off.

And did she trust him not to make a wrong move? She did not.

She had just opened up the detonator. It was not safe to leave it like this. She had to keep going.

"Tak? Hmmmm? Tak?" He had a habit, she had noticed, of drawing out syllables and adding odd, almost musical inflections to them when in the grip of any strong emotion. This habit was occasionally grating. He was adding a funny little squeak to her name now.

"Yes, what?" she growled.

"Are your hands shaking, Tak?"

"No! No, they are not."

"Okay." He made low, jerky humming noises in his throat. She could feel their vibrations in her fingertips.

"Almost got it! Almost- there!"

She pulled the collar off of his neck and held it aloft. "Behold! There is no device in this universe that Invader Tak cannot tackle. It was a waste of energy to worry about it, Zim."

"Ah! You did it!" Zim bounced frantically up and down. "Good work, Tak! Truly, your mechanical skills are worthy, even if you're not really an Invader."

"You're not either."

"I graduated, at least."

"You weren't even supposed to be in Operation Impending Doom 1! They told you to stand in a little circle!"

"But I didn't stay in the circle."

"Whatever!" She snorted. "I'm going to get rid of this thing." Tak drew back the collar and threw it into the corner.

It sailed in a glittering arc and connected with the floor.

Tak laughed aloud. "I know I should have expected this from a group of traitors but that certainly was simply constructed. It only took me a few minutes to-"

Her words were lost in the noise and the light and then her screaming and then Zim's screaming. A smoking crater had appeared where the supposedly-deactivated collar had hit the ground, exposing a great deal of the inner mechanisms of the ship. The shock had caused Tak to hit the ground on her hip.

She believed she had stopped screaming. Zim stopped a few seconds later.

"All right, that's fine," she said. "There was a secondary explosive device! Isn't that interesting!"

Zim laughed hysterically. "What overkill! One device would have been enough to kill me! Adding another one was just a waste of good bomb parts!"

"How silly!" She wondered if he had any inkling of the thumping in her chest and her ragged panting. Maybe he hadn't noticed. She had noticed his glazed eyes and hyperventilation but he was so much less perceptive, he probably hadn't noticed her equal amount of terror.

Her hands were doing... something. They were locked into his hands.

She sprung away with a squeal of disgust. Zim looked at his palms in confusion. Perhaps he had not realized there had been something there. Good.

"Well," she said, sounding short of breath to herself, "why don't we go see the Tallest now?"

"Eh? Ah? Yes! Tallest!"

She gestured towards the ladder. "After you!"

"After you!"

"No, I insist!"

"All right, then!" He scrambled up the ladder. She hesitated. He had not collected his things and neither had she. Their possessions were all still on the floor. She started putting them back in her Pak. Most of Zim's things were clearly well used... she'd have no trouble picking them out to return to him later.

This ladder was longer than it had looked from below. It did not lead directly to the floor above, but instead into a long tunnel between the floors.

"So," Tak said. "Zim! Do you actually know... at all... where we are going?"

"Oh, Tak, don't be silly!" He sounded chipper for real now, and no longer chipper because he was terrified of explosions and trying not to be. "I know the Massive like the back of my data card. I've downloaded all the schematics and memorized them completely. I probably know this place better than the Tallest do, if I dare say so myself."

She rolled her eyes. He probably did, he was such a creep.

He stopped on the ladder. She almost ran into him.

He looked down over his shoulder at her. "Tak! You have to take that thingy out of your head."

"Thingy."

"Your invention! Your mind control invention. You don't want to be arrested, do you?"

She did not, in fact, want to be arrested. She took the implant out of her forehead and tucked it into her Pak.

Zim gnawed the inside of his cheek. "Ooh, there's a hole in your head now."

"Yes, there is, the device is embedded into my skull when I wear it, that's how it works."

He put his fingertips to his mouth, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully. "Do you by any chance have a hat?"

"I do not, no."

"Hmm, that's too bad! The Tallest don't like holes in the head."

"And how do you know that, exactly?" It seemed like an oddly specific thing to know.

"For reasons!" He gave her a dismissive handwave. "We can discuss Zim's amazing life later. Put the thing back in your head. If they ask I'll tell them it's just there to block the hole. They do not like holes. Okay!" He resumed climbing.

She tucked her implant back into place and climbed up after him. She much preferred not going about with a hole in her head herself, if she were being honest.

"Are the Tallest actually going to want to see you?" she said.

"Of course they are. I'm sure they'd much rather I report in person," he said.

"Can you really do that? Just go in and... see them? You're not going to end up... skewered on anything, or anything of the sort?"

"Of course I can just go see them! I'm an Invader."

She sighed.

"That was some explosion back there," Zim mused. "Impressive."

That better not be leading where she thought it was. "Do not tell the Tallest about the explosion."

"Why not?"

Seriously? "They don't like it when parts of their ship explode."

"Oh... yes, I suppose."

"Zim. You are not going to tell them about the explosion. I'm deadly serious."

"It's not important right now anyway."

"I will  _harm_ you if you tell them!"

His shoulders slumped a little bit. "Okay, fine! I won't."

"Will they know that was us if we don't tell them?"

"Of course not."

There was something unusual about his demeanor... there had been for the last few minutes. She tried to put her finger on what it was.

Ah. The smile. He was in a genuinely good mood. Not evil glee, or the satisfaction of a job well done, he was strictly happy. He wanted to see the Tallest. He actually  _liked_ them.

She shook her head. "Do you really believe they want to see you? Do you expect to be welcomed with open arms?"

"Why wouldn't they want to see me?" The tone was not defensive or dismissive, it was somewhat distracted.

"You honestly don't know, I take it."

"No, I don't see why they wouldn't want to see me."

But some of his ebullience had gone, now that she'd asked.

"Zim, what do you honestly think will happen if you succeed in your mission?"

"I will be rewarded with glory and power! And bigger and better missions!"

"Do you remember Invader Skoodge? He succeeded in his mission and nothing much happened for him."

"That's because Skoodge doesn't have the right image." And Zim did? "It's too bad for Skoodge, but it can't be helped. Besides, he's fine! He lives on Earth now."

She found that hard to believe. "Where are you getting that?"

"Oh, he lived in my base for a while." What? "What do you think will happen if you succeed in taking my mission, hmm, Tak?"

"I'll be rewarded by being given a legitimate job as an Invader and-"

"Uh huh."

And bigger and better missions... and glory and power. She tensed. "I'm nothing like you, Zim!"

"You're not?"

"No!"

"Not even a little bit?"

"No! Why are you saying that? You don't even know what I'm referring to!"

"Well I was going to say that you're almost as good as me and it's a shame you're not an Invader because you're better than the rest of the fools I went to school with but if you're nothing like me whatsoever and you don't want my amazing Zim praises then you don't get any so there!"

That was not the answer she had expected. That was not the answer she had expected whatsoever.

He'd sounded incredibly flustered. At this angle, climbing the ladder a foot or so underneath him, she couldn't see his face when he wasn't turning to look down at her. Though his overshirt was rather loose and she could see that he was thinner than she'd thought he was underneath it. And had longer legs than she'd thought he had, too. He would probably look taller if he wore a shorter tunic, the one he had on reached to mid-thigh. Perhaps they didn't make the Invader uniform in his size...

She looked away. She was getting rather bizarrely distracted.

Zim had reached the top of the ladder. He hoisted himself up. "Hup!"

Tak couldn't see much of anything up there- he'd simply vanished from view. "Come on, Tak!" he called in after her.

"Yes, yes, I'll be there in a second," she said. She reached for the next rung.

"Hey, guys!" Zim said.

Tak froze. Who was he greeting and why? He sounded happy to see them, but she had just seen that he was happy to see people he shouldn't be happy to see.

"I'm here to see the Tallest. Something's come up and-"

"GET 'IM!"

Oh dear. She should have expected this.

"Eh? What's that? What are you doing? OW! OW OW!"

Tak pulled herself up and peeked out of the hole. About... ten... fifteen guards? Hmm.

She retreated back down onto the ladder, out of sight. She heard Zim protesting loudly. His protests faded as he was dragged away. She peeked back out. She was alone now.

She would assume Zim would be able to remain alive and relatively unhurt on his own. He had a certain amount of good luck with these things and there was nothing she could do against that much firepower. She would never be able to rescue him from all those guards, and even if she could, if she did she would probably end up executed.

What  _was_  she going to do, then? Hmm...

* * *

"Looks like they're getting close to the Tallest," Eet said.

Bri studied the tracking displays. "One of them is, anyway."

Vaz's hand was over his eyes. "It doesn't matter now. The detonator's already gone. I can't believe it, all that for nothing."

"It was a good try, sir," Bri said, with some hesitation. "With a few... glaring logical problems... perhaps in the future you should run these things by us before we implement them?"

"Shut up, Bri."

Eet stood up. "All right. I'll be right back, boss."

He turned. She was already leaving. "Eet? Eet?"

Bah, she'd probably gone to the cafeteria.

Time to think of a new plan. "Bri, do you have any ideas?"

"None whatsoever sir."

Bah.


	9. Chapter 9

Zim hit the floor on his knees.

They'd put those big heavy things on his hands so that he could barely lift them and couldn't run. "You didn't need to put these stupid things on me! I told you I wasn't going to go anywhere," he said. "I'm just here to report to the Tallest."

He looked up. There they were!

"My Tallest!" He wiggled his antennae in salute. "I'm sorry I can't greet you properly, these fools put these things on my hands." He was unable to bow the right way or salute with his hands. He was kind of stuck in a crouching position.

The Tallest and all the techs were staring at him.

"Zim." Tallest Red's hand tightened on his soft drink, crushing it. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, it's a long story. Which I'll tell you now, if you have the time. I know you're very busy, but this is important. Your very lives may be in danger, sirs." All eyes were on him. Very intently on him, viewing his every move. As was proper, yes?

It had been far too long since he'd had a shower... but that couldn't be helped. "Okay. So. There's this group, led by an Irken called Vaz who was arrested for plotting against the Tallest a long time ago, thanks to me, but he was never executed and now..."

* * *

Tak had easily been able to navigate her way to the heart of the ship by following Zim's voice as she made her way through the ventilation system. It was a bit troubling how lax the security system was on the Massive. They had instantly captured Zim, but both Tak and the rebel group had been able to do as they pleased.

Did they think Zim was their only problem?

She peeked through the grate. There he was, in the center of the room, ringed by guards and control centers with frightened techs hiding behind them. And he was addressing the Tallest. Oh boy.

"-and they dumped me here! And that's how I got here," he concluded. He had omitted the explosion. Good. She had feared he wouldn't.

It also seemed that he had not brought her up. That was likely a good thing at this point.

"Huh." Tallest Red fiddled with the straw in his drink. Neither one of them looked very interested. "That's a very... plausible story, Zim, but you know you're not supposed to be here."

Zim's eyes were wide and earnest. "I know, my Tallest! The traitors deposited me here! I was on Earth, working on my mission. I assure you, I wouldn't be here if I'd been left to my own devices. But it's a good thing I am here! Otherwise, you wouldn't have this warning- who knows what may have befallen you, sirs?"

There was a genuine note of distress in his voice, she thought.

The Tallest were quite unmoved. "Okay. That's great, Zim. We'll watch out for that. You're going to leave now, right?"

"Well," Zim hesitated. "I don't seem to have a ship right now. I don't know where Tak put it." Oh right his ship. It was gone. "So, if I might borrow- oh! Oh, yes, Tak!" He snapped his fingers.

Oh no. What was he going to say about her? She was not sure she would want to hear it.

She leaned closer so she could hear better.

"Who's Tak?" Tallest Purple said.

All right, she knew they couldn't remember everyone, but that was disappointing.

"Tak is a, uh... Mechanic." Nope. Not anymore. Strike one. "She's been offering me some assistance, nothing major..." Strike two. "She tried to steal my mission earlier!"

"Oh, that Tak," Tallest Red said. "It's a shame about what happened there."

"Yes, yes, it is," Zim said, presumably for the sole purpose of agreement and not with any understanding of what was being said. "My Tallest, I would like to recommend that Tak be made an Invader and given a real mission! She'll probably succeed, and she will not longer be in the way of my very important mission! Neat plan, huh?"

Tak leaned in even closer, pressing her face up against the grate.

"Oh, really," Tallest Purple said. They looked like they were struggling not to laugh. "You're recommending people we should hire. Thank you. Zim."

"I'm sure she's as brilliant as you are," Tallest Red said, strained.

Tak cringed slightly.

"Well, that's a long way to go," Zim said. He withdrew shyly. "I guess she's pretty good. She's smart and all. I don't know. I'm sure she won't disappoint you! If she does, it won't be anything I could have foreseen, you know."

A commendation from Invader Zim, the worst creature in the universe. Great. Excellent. That was going to get her far in life.

She propped her head in her hand and rested her elbow against the grate. It shifted. Oh no.

The grate was coming off and too much of her weight was leaned up against it for her to pull back in time.

She was falling. She landed on her side on the ground amidst yelps of surprise. The guards circled her.

"Tak!" Zim cried, lurching somewhat in her direction. He was weighted down by the things on his arms and could barely move. "There you are! Where were you? Good news, you've been hired."

"Uh," said Tallest Purple.

Tallest Red cleared his throat. "Sorry, Zim, we're full up on Invaders right now. We'll call Chack there when we have an open spot."

"Uh, her name's Tak," Zim said, "and the solution is simple! Fire Sneakyonfoota. He's terrible. Tak's much better."

Tallest Purple snorted.

Tallest Red glanced Tak over and looked back at Zim. "While you sure know what makes an Invader good and all, given, you know, your illustrious career, we're not going to do that, Zim. So about this-"

"Why not, hm?" Zim prodded.

Tak interrupted here before things could get worse. "My Tallest!" She bowed. "I apologize deeply-  _deeply-_ for the interruption! I was deposited here along with Zim. His story is true. About the traitors. I know how he likely told it is not necessarily the truth in full-"

"Semantics!" Zim dismissed.

"-I suppose. The gist of it is true," she said.

"Oh," said Tallest Red. "Huh. Well, we'll keep a look out for those people. Bye now."

His tone was far too dismissive for her liking. Tak bowed again.

"My Tallest, it's imperative that you consider this carefully! They got right up to the Massive and were able to blow right past your security. This is from them" She gestured to the tracker around her neck. "They had a bomb around Zim's neck, but I took care of it!"

One of the guards standing behind Zim peered at her. "Were you behind that explosion down in D block?"

Tak could sense events sliding out of control. "No! Not in the least!" she said. "That absolutely had nothing to do with me whatsoever. It's merely a strange coincidence."

"Yes, impressive, but just a coincidence," Zim added.

Tallest Purple began to look a little more awake. "Explosions? I like explosions, but not when they happen where I live."

"Hmm," Tallest Red said. "If there are explosions getting involved now, better take 'em to the dungeons."

Oh no no no.

This wasn't going to work. They just weren't listening and there was no point to pleading her case to people who weren't listening. She was  _not_ like Zim and she knew a lost cause when she saw one.

She leaned down, unsnapped the weights from Zim's hands, slung him over his shoulder and popped up on her Pak legs.

"Hey hey hey hey!" he yelled in her ear as she bounded out of the room. "I'm not done talking to them! What are you doing?"

"No time, Zim!" She swung a right. "Where are the ships?"

"You can't steal a ship from the-"

"I'm borrowing it! Are those guards coming after us?"

"Yes! They are! Turn left!"

She turned left.

"Now down," Zim yelled. "Put me down, you're gonna make me sick!"

She put him down. He popped up on his own Pak and quickly looked to each side.

She heard more guards approaching from a different direction. "Which way?"

"This way!" He opened a ceiling hatch and popped into it. "It's a shortcut!" And it was large enough to admit Zim and Tak, but too small for those guards to fit into.

They emerged in a ship bay a very little while later. It was vacant but for two techs hanging out sipping coffee.

Zim flipped one of the techs into the other tech while Tak hopped into a ship and started it up. Zim jumped in beside her. "Go! Go! Go!  _Cheese it!"_

"Does this ship have a turbo?" she asked.

"Nope! Only mine does. I hope you stashed it nearby! The Voot Crusier is way faster than this thing!"

She was going to have to tell him she'd ditched his ship, but not right now.

They were out in open space now. She cranked up the speed as high as it would go. "There's no cloak!"

"Nope, just gotta go fast. Those guards run slow, we have time."

"They run slow? How do you know this, Zim? How many times have they chased you?"

She thought he was pretending not to hear her.

"I think we made it," he said. "Hoo!" He slumped back in the seat, wiping his brow with the back of one glove. "Let's go get those nachos, hm?"

"Nachos?" Every time. Every time she thought she had learned to anticipate his madness he pulled out something new.

She slammed her fist down on the control panel. "This is not a time to celebrate!"

Zim tossed his hands into the air. "Whaddaya mean it's not a time to celebrate? We finished all that traitor stuff, we warned the Tallet, I got you a mission, and we escaped! Let's go eat nachos."

"You did not get me a mission!"

"Hm?" Zim chortled. "Oh, they'll give you one."

"They don't want to give me one! Were you listening whatsoever to  _anything_ they said?"

Zim patted her hand. "They will, Tak. They will."

The funny thing was, she almost somewhat believed him... "Look! They tried to arrest me! They are not giving me a job now!"

"That? They'll forget all about that! Trust me. You'll have a shiny new mission in a few days. You see I have connections, Tak. Consider it my thank you for a job well done."

She chafed at that a little bit. "I traded in your Voot Cruiser."

"Eh. What?"

"The police were stopping me for some horrible thing you did with that ship. I traded it in. You no longer possess it!"

His smile was gone now. Some small part of that bothered her. Ew! Why? Gross! It was what he deserved, he deserved it.

"Oh." He sighed. "Well, I don't have to retrieve it now." He slumped in his seat.

"I mean if you really want it back I suppose you can go steal it, I'm sure it was stolen in the first place," she muttered.

"No, it wasn't! I bought that ship!"

"Where do you buy a ship like that?"

"Around! I don't remember now."

"If you don't remember where you bought it, isn't it possible that perhaps you did steal-"

Her words were lost in the crunch of metal and the sudden halt of the ship. Tak was thrown forward against the control panel.

Tak looked out of the cockpit. That horrible ship she'd traded the Voot Cruiser for was jammed up against their new stolen ship. And in the pilot's seat was someone horrible.

Zim gasped. "Eet? What are you doing here?"

Eet's voice crackled over the radio. "Yeah, hi. I'm going to go assassinate the Tallest and I thought I'd kill you first."

"Oh come on!" Tak snapped.


	10. Chapter 10

Eet revved up her ship- Tak's old ship, rather- sort of- the one she'd traded for the Voot- and slammed it into Tak's current stolen ship a second time. The cockpit caved in. Tak put up her breathing shield.

Eet was a few inches from her face. She was pulling back the stun gun. Tak knocked it out of her hand. It fell and Zim snatched it up.

"It's not working!" he snapped, frantically fiddling with it.

"It's DNA coded! Only works for me!" Eet drove her knee into Tak's chest. Tak put Eet in a headlock. Eet pulled against the lock and tipped Tak into the other ship. She grabbed the controls and backed up, separating the two ships. "Now your boyfriend ain't gonna be much help."

Tak kicked Eet's hands away from he controls. "He was never going to be much help!" she snapped.

Eet drove her Pak implements into Tak's chest, pinning her against the back of the ship. Tak kicked out at her but couldn't quite connect.

Inside the cockpit of the other ship she saw Zim sit up and shake his head groggily. Eet must have struck him while Tak was preoccupied somehow. No, that wasn't possible. He must have hit his head when the two ships were forced apart.

Tak tried to use her Pak to break free of Eet's hold and Eet twined their legs together. Tak had immoblized Rikk this exact same way earlier. It was not an easy thing to get out of. Instead she grabbed Eet's face with both hands and tried to headbutt her.

They both had breathing shields up. The headbutt was not very effective.

Eet grabbed Tak's wrist and twisted it into a painful lock. "Agh!" Tak would normally drive her thumb into Eet's throat at this point but the shield was in the way. She kicked again and managed to connect, but Eet had body armor. She'd come prepared... drat.

The other ship was pulling away. Zim was fleeing the scene. Unbelivable. He'd deserted her!

Eet had her right where she wanted her. "All right, now what?" Tak spat. "Do your worst, Eet, I don't believe for one second that you're really going to kill me!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes!"

"Watch this!"

The blow came not from Eet but from a splintering crash. In the confusion Eet's hold broke free.

Before she could take advantage of that opening Tak was hauled bodily out of the ship. She looked up. Big, berry-colored eyes stared back at her. Not Eet's unnatural blue.

"You're back," Tak sputtered. He must have been pulling away so he could rev up and smash into Eet's ship. He hadn't been leaving her at all. Well. Good. "Hello."

"Yeah hi Tak." Zim dumped her unceremoniously next to him and grabbed for the controls.

"Where's that stun gun? I'll break the DNA lock," she said.

Zim handed it to her. She went to work. "Good! If we knock her out and leave her here the guards will catch her! They'll be after us any second," he said.

Tak had already cracked the DNA lock. "All right! Stun her, leave her to be arrested. I'm going out!"

"By the way I can barely steer this thing, it's awful!"

"Hang in there!"

She jumped out of the ship and back into Eet's.

"Ha!" Eet said. "You can't use that!"

Tak slammed the stun gun into Eet's chest and pulled the trigger. "Yes, I can."

Eet was now immobilized and Tak could see the guards coming. "Ha!" she crowed. "Do not toy with an Irken Invader!"

Eet stared at her with mute despair. Tak punched her in the shoulder. "This is for calling me easy prey!"

Tak hopped free of Eet's ship. Zim caught her wrist and pulled her into the other ship beside him.

Tak turned and watched over her shoulder as they careened away from the scene. She saw the saucer ship approaching as well as the guard ships beginning to filter out of the Massive. It looked like Eet's crew was swooping in to save her. "They're all going to get arrested!" Tak said.

"Good!"

They laughed together for a moment. Tak flopped back in the seat. "A flawless victory."

"Exactly how I planned it," Zim said, which set Tak off laughing again. "What? What?"

Tak's laughter slowed to a stop. "Now what?"

"Now?" Zim sounded as if this was shockingly obvious. "Now we go home!"

We?

Sure. She'd correct him after she got a free ride back to Earth.

* * *

The ship thudded to a halt in Zim's yard. He hopped out, stretched, and walked towards the base.

He'd forgotten- she'd broken in and reprogrammed his security system, back before all this happened. She ran ahead and opened the door for him. If she hadn't he would have been thrown back out onto the sidewalk and probably lasered to death.

Zim glanced sideways at her, nodded appreciatively, and walked in. Idiot. He'd thought she was just opening the door to be nice.

He stood there a few feet into the house and looked around with an expression of dull misery. There was ketchup everywhere.

"Was this GIR?" Tak asked.

"Yes." Zim looked somewhat wilted.

Tak glanced up at the ceiling. "Computer, clean that up," she said. "And, uh... recognize Zim's commands. I'm authorizing him."

"I don't want to do either of those things."

"What is wrong with your computer?" she asked Zim. He shrugged.

"We are your masters. You will do what I tell you, computer," she said, "or I will rip your heart out and melt it. I'll also disable your speech function so that you can no longer register these traitorous complaints."

"Fine, fine..."

Brushes and brooms descended from the ceiling to clean up the place.

"That is how you deal with unruly AI," Tak said with a toss of her head.

"I guess," Zim said. "I could have done that at any time, you know."

"Of course." Tak turned to Zim. "Do you have a recharging room?"

"Of course I do. Wouldn't I die without one?"

"I... suppose. I honestly didn't know. Your base seems... unconventional."

"Eh. Yes, I have one. I was about to use it." There were deep shadows under his eyes.

"Oh, I see."

"It... might fit both of us."

Hm. Yuck. "No, no, that's all right, you charge and I'll shower."

"Okay. Computer, take us to the recharging level."

The floor descended underneath them. A few seconds passed among dirt and woven cables.

"Wait, computer, pause at Workstation A," Zim said.

They paused in one of the lab sections. Zim stepped off the platform to check the current project he had set up. He stepped back onto the platform a second later. He looked a shade more downcast than he had previously.

"Not going according to plan?" she prodded.

"The rat died."

"Oh."

"Not much good to me dead," he muttered. "Computer, take me to the recharging room and take Tak to the showers."

First Tak showered while he recharged and then she recharged while he showered. When she got back upstairs, he was sitting on the couch next to that horrible robot.

"I believe we had a deal," she said.

He looked up at her. "What?"

"My ship."

"Oh, yes, that. Well, Dib will be coming back on Monday." That was two days from now. "I can make him open the garage then..."

"You don't know how to get into Dib's garage?"

"Oh, I do," he said. "However, my methods of getting in tend to obliterate the things that are inside."

"I see." She wouldn't want that. Also, she wouldn't be able to move in to her new living space until about Tuesday anyway. Her plan had been to reside in Zim's base for that amount of time regardless. She just, um, hadn't expected him to be allowed inside it while she was there.

He pointed at the TV. "Eh. That's wrestling. See?"

Tak observed the TV for a moment. Beefy humans in crazy costumes screaming and beating on each other. It looked... incredibly lowbrow. "I see."

Zim glanced meaningfully at the empty armchair next to the couch. Tak hesitated a moment.

Ah, Monday was three days away. She had time to kill.

She sat down.

An agreeable silence fell.

"Huh," Zim said a little while later, jolting Tak out of an almost-doze. Recharging the Pak and recharging the body shell weren't exactly the same thing. "Getting a call," he said. He leaned forward to answer it. "Hello?"

"Greetings! This is Bri..."

Zim stiffened and glared. "Bri! I don't want to talk to you!"

"Kick him," Tak said.

"I will!" That had been a joke; Bri was lightyears away at the moment.

The awful traitor's nasal voice continued to ring out over Zim's Pak's speakers. "This will only take a second! I thought you'd like to know that Skulk and Rikk and Eet are all in jail. We're going to have to break them out. It's really fouled up our plans. I thought you'd like to know."

"Yes, yes," Zim said. "Wonderful."

"It's what you deserve," Tak muttered.

"Ah, you're still together!" Tak flinched. "Wonderful. I'll be signing off now. I'll see you later!" The call ended.

"I'll have to block him," Zim muttered.

He started looking around, checking his pockets and the drawer of the end table.

"Looking for something?" she asked.

"Nope! Everything's fine!"

"Because I think I have everything from your Pak... remember?"

"Huh?" He peered at her. "Remember what?"

"We were looking for things... the collars... you abandoned your things on the floor. I picked them up." He had also forgotten to ever offer to help remove Tak's tracking collar. She'd taken it off herself on the way here.

"Oh, right. Give me my stuff back!"

She started picking her things out from her Pak. "All right, here's your notepad..." She handed it over.

He turned it on. "Ah. No. This is your notepad."

"No, I'm pretty sure that's yours."

He turned it to face her. The note on top was

_To Do List:_

_\- Fix radio antenna on roof_

_\- Sell cloaking device for rent payment_

_\- Mooch off horrible Zim until check clears_

_\- Get nanowire and circuit boards_

_\- Get MiMi out of storage_

"Give me that!" She snatched it away from him.

How had she made that mistake? Was her own notepad really that worn down? She'd thought this old one  _had_ to be his.

She pulled out the other notepad in her Pak. It was equally dilapidated.

"Why was your robot in storage?" Zim asked.

"I didn't have the parts to finish fixing her. I do now. This is none of your business!" She threw his notepad at him. It bounced off his chest and he made an 'oof' sound.

She continued to pull things out of her Pak. A toy pig. A food scanner. "These are all yours," she snapped.

"You sell the things you make?" he said.

"Yes! Because they're good."

"And you receive moneys?"

"That's how selling things works!"

Zim tucked the toy pig she'd returned to him back into his Pak. "How much moneys do you get?"

"A lot," she fumed.

"But you couldn't pay your rent."

"There was a thing with the bank, it was not my fault." And she may have overspent a little bit on MiMi's repairs. She'd started off just fixing the hacking vulnerability and removing any traces of GIR's garbage code. But then she had started thinking of improvements to make.

"Do you have a permit to sell stuff?"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because if I waited for permits to do everything I want to do I'd still be on Dirt."

"Okay. And you don't get in trouble for that..."

"Not if I'm cautious." She squinted at him. "You know you don't have any inventions worth selling, right?"

"I could build something worth moneys if I wanted to."

He admitted that nothing he had now was sellable. Interesting.

Oh- she'd come to a small, round bottle of pills. "Is this what you were looking for?" She read the label. Over-the-counter painkillers.

"Give me those!"

She handed them over. He tucked them away.

"You seem... awkward about these. There's nothing even mildly unusual about owning a bottle of mild analgesics," she said. "Except of course that Invaders shouldn't need them, is that what you're worried about?'

"No, I'm not worried about anything. Give me the rest of my stuff back."

"That was it."

"Oh. Hm. Okay." He looked away, fiddling with the tip of one antenna. She had just managed to stop noticing his antennae.

When Zim had told her (forever ago) that he had digestive issues she had assumed the problem was the toxic everything on Earth. Acid reflux and headaches were both symptoms of chronic stress. Tak had headaches too. In fact she may have just confused their bottles of aspirin with each other. All bottles of aspirin looked alike.

An awkward silence had fallen. Zim slumped down in his seat, noticed her watching him out of the corner of her eye, and sat up straight. She smirked a little bit.

"So, Tak," he said. "Are you still encoded as a Mechanic?"

"No!" She was encoded as Janitor, and Zim should shut up.

"Oh." He viewed her with a sly, sideways look. "I've been working on a program for re-encoding."

When Zim had an emotion his whole body morphed around it. He was a bit different from all the Irkens she'd meant whose faces seemed to be locked into arrogant disdain. Not that arrogant disdain wasn't wonderful and quite a bit more dignified than Zim's utterly genuine and spontaneous fits of rage and fear but he could be interesting to look at.

Hold up what was that what had he said? "That's incredibly illegal."

"So's your psychic implant."

"There are levels," she said. "There are levels of illegality. Say my implant is up here." She held her hand up. "Your re-encoding program is on the moon!"

He nodded, unfazed. "Is it worth money?"

"Yes, if it works, but if you try to sell it you will be shot. In the face."

"Okay. Do you want to see my amazing program, Tak?"

She found that she did. She was, in fact, encoded as a Janitor But it could wait, she'd had a very long day. "Later, Zim."

"Okay."

"What... was your plan, incidentally? With that rat?"

"Oh, I was going to increase gravity and stick all the humans to the surface of the Earth so I could go around and..." He waved one hand, frowning. She had the sense he was having trouble finding the right word for what he planned to do.

He settled for pressing the tip of his thumb into his palm, miming someone squishing a bug.

"I see," she said. She did not know what that gesture meant, but all right.

"Maybe I still will."

"You very well could, you don't really need that particular test subject for that."

"Of course I don't."

She viewed the TV. Wrestling had gotten boring for her rather quickly. She wondered if she should ask him to change the channel.

GIR kicked his legs back and forth. Tak jumped. She had managed to forget he was there until he'd moved.

"Do we like Tak now?" GIR asked.

"We have an understanding with Tak. Do not eat her legs," Zim replied.

Tak stretched. The arm chair was rather nice. It seemed unused. It might not be so bad, killing time here until Monday. Provided GIR did not do much, of course.

In her peripheral vision, she noticed Zim was watching her instead of the TV. He looked at her the same way he looked at the Tallest. Why, no one had ever properly realized that she was that level of amazing before.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is over and i don't have to look at it anymore yaaay

Monday evening.

Zim's footsteps were sharp and clear and professional on the sidewalk. Tak naturally marched in step with him. It was something that Invaders usually naturally did because they were conditioned for it. Skoodge had always been a bit sloppy at it, though. Not like Tak, she was incredibly precise.

They had reached Dib's front walk. He turned to Tak. She was viewing him with that faint amusement that he never knew how to read. She was so unruffled, that Tak... "Just wait here," he said. "I'll take care of this."

"Oh, I can't wait." She expected Zim to do something amusing. But he was going to do something impressive.

He marched up to the door and knocked on it.

Okay, first minor snag: Dib was not answering. Zim clasped his hands in the hollow of his lower back and tapped his foot. He glanced back at Tak. She didn't look too impatient. Standing there lit faintly by the moonlight, her breath visible in the cold fall evening... it was just cold enough that Zim had put on a scarf and a hat and a sweater before leaving. That had seemed to amuse Tak but lots of things seemed to amuse Tak.

Where was that horrible child? Zim knocked again, but louder.

He heard a voice from inside. "Dib, your stupid friend is here!"

Footsteps approached.

Dib cracked the door open. "Hello, Zim! Any new spectacular failures while I was gone?"

"No! Ha! I don't fail." Had Tak heard that? Surely not. And if she had, why would she believe Dib anyway? "I'm here to..." What was the most impressive thing he could say to threaten Dib? "I'm here to rip out your entrails unless you return Tak's ship to her right away!"

Dib peered past him. Zim turned his disgusting face away. "Yes, she's here. You don't deserve to look upon her beauty, even in that horrible human disguise she has on."

"Her... beauty? Zim, are you... under some kind of mind control?"

"Ha! No! I'm just here to see that Irken property is returned to Irken Invaders! The ship, Dib. Now!"

Dib squinted at him. "Is she trying to make you her slave? Do you need help? I just got back, so-"

Zim gasped. "Your help! You! How dare you? She can hear you! No, I don't need your stupid help!" Zim risked a glance back at Tak. She had one eyebrow up. Dib was making him look like an idiot!

"Dib," Zim announced, "this conversation is too stupid to trouble Tak with. You are my problem, not hers!" He forced his way inside and shut and locked the door behind him. "Okay. Dib. Stop talking!"

"I'm confused," Dib said. "You're kind of sweating and blushing and calling Tak beautiful and I'm starting to wonder if this means anything!"

"No! I'm not blushing, it's cold and my face is- I don't have to explain myself to you!" Zim aimed a kick at Dib's shins. Dib dodged.

"Oh man! Gaz! Zim has a crush!"

"I don't care!" Gaz called from upstairs.

"I do not have a crush!" Zim pounced. Dib dodged and Zim crashed into the couch.

Dib perched on the arm of the couch and laughed.

"I'm going to rip out your eyeballs!" Zim screeched.

"She can probably hear you!"

"I'm going to rip out your eyeballs!" Zim whispered.

Dib propped his face in his hands. "So you're trying to suck up to Tak by getting her ship back so she'll go out with you?"

"No!" Zim looked down. His hands were wringing and his squeedly-spooch was in knots. Ugh, why? "She's going home after I get her ship back..."

"She doesn't like you back, does she?"

"I do not like her, Dib! Irkens do not love or get crushes or whatever you think this is. The very thought of it is disgusting! I'm just helping her, because-"

"Don't-" Dib held up one hand palm out in a 'stop' gesture. "Don't do that, Zim. I know how selfish you are, you're not helping her out of the goodness of your disgusting, infatuated alien monster heart!"

"Well, maybe I am!" Zim spat. He paced back and forth. "I have no time for love."

"To be clear I don't think you're emotionally capable of real love, I think what you have is just a-"

"Shut up, Dib. Love is only a distraction."

"Well, that's how I feel about it, that's what my dad says," Dib said. "Agent Darkbootie thinks I'll change my mind when I'm older but I'll still be the same person then as I am now, right? I don't really see how love could become more important than science..."

"I don't care."

"I know, I guess I'm just thinking out loud. I guess it's possible I just haven't met anyone good enough for me yet... but then I probably never will. I know how that sounds, but it's just true."

"Stop thinking out loud." Zim came to a halt. He pressed on his belly wih one hand in the vague hope that he could manually stop all the nervous lurching around in there.

Dib glanced over him. "Do you want some help?"

"I do not!"

"Okay."

Zim paced back and forth some more. "Why isn't my Pak stopping this?"

"I don't know."

"I have to impress her, but-" He shook himself. "What's wrong with me?"

"I have some advice for you if you want it."

"I don't want any of your stupid advice. What is it? What's the advice?" Zim was at a loss. He had tried hinting to GIR a little bit, thinking that this was really GIR's area of interest. Mistake. Big mistake.

"Tell her how you feel," Dib said.

"No! I can't!"

Dib was clearly holding in laughter. "No, just hear me out. Tell her you like her. You're vile and the absolute worst person to ever exist, so she'll reject you completely and break your heart and you won't like her anymore!"

Zim glared at him. "My heart doesn't break!"

"Of course not, Zim."

"What if she likes me too?" Zim looked at Dib's boots. "And we go out? And I never stop liking her?"

"She does not. That's not going to happen."

Tell her! Tell her he was practically defective, more like! "Dib, that advice was horrible! It sickens me."

Gaz was on the stairs. "What are you talking about? Why is Zim here?"

He glanced up at her. "I'm going to make your brother open the garage so I can get Tak's ship back, it will only take a second."

"I'm never going to open that garage!" Dib insisted.

Gaz rolled her eyes and walked out the front door. Dib scurried after her with Zim in pursuit.

Gaz crossed the yard and opened the garage. Zim turned to where Tak was standing.

"Finally," she said. Zim's heart sank. He'd disappointed her. Wait. No. Ack. He didn't care!

"Yes, the garage is open," he said quickly, "thanks to me!" He beckoned Tak over.

They entered the garage. Dib and Gaz were standing by the ship.

"Gaz," Dib said, "why?"

Gaz grunted and walked out.

"Gaz-" Dib turned to Zim and Tak. "Ha! If you want this ship, you'll have to go through me!"

"Certainly!" Tak pulled something out of her pocket, shook it and threw it. It hit Dib in the chest and exploded into ropes of goo that stuck him to the wall of the garage. Ooh!

Dib struggled. "No! Nah! Gah!"

"Ha!" Zim shouted.

Tak walked up to the ship. She scowled at it. "You painted it!"

"Yeah!" Dib said. "I painted it human! It's a human ship now!"

"No, it isn't!" Tak snarled.

Zim drew closer to her. His heart pounded in his ears. "Huh, that sure is ugly. You know, this is my planet, so this is somewhat my responsibility. If you want to repaint this ship in my lab before you leave, I might allow-"

She was waving him off. "No, that's all right, I've had worse. I have errands to return to. I'll have to fix it later."

Dib had fallen silent and was watching Zim and Tak with a horrible nasty smile. Zim tossed a threatening glance at him. That only made Dib more amused.

Tak was climbing into the ship. "I suppose this is farewell, Zim."

"Wh-" He clung to the side of the ship, staring in at her. Her hologram disappeared, revealing her smooth, soft face, that weird little mole on her cheek, that ingenious psychic implant... "Tak, wait!"

She glanced up at him. "What? I don't owe you anything anymore. I gave you the money for nachos, remember?"

"Yes, but- you see-" Zim had the distinct feeling that there was some kind of tentacled mutant parasite in his chest, trying to strangle him. "You don't have to go yet. I can show you, uh-"

She looked straight into his eyes. She seemed to be seeing into him. Like she knew. He gulped and fell silent.

"You know," she said, measuredly, "if you were to ever... mature somewhat... and stop telling people who say things you don't like that they're  _liars_  all the time..."

"Hmm?"

"I may just call you sometime."

"Call me?" he floundered. "I mean- I'll probably be busy."

She smirked.

"But not that busy. I mean, very busy, but I'm a master of delegation and, uh, I might have time to talk for just a minute if you did-"

"He has a huge crush on you," Dib yelled.

"I know," Tak said.

Zim was rarely at a loss for words because he was such an eloquent speaker but right now it was like there was a huge wad of NO in his throat and he couldn't get it out.

"Good luck with your mission, Zim," she told him. "I will probably be in touch."

"Oh. Sure."

"Take off your hat and wig."

He did so mechanically. She gently tweaked his antenna. "Goodbye."

His face was burning. He backed up and watched as she pulled out of the garage.

And then there was nothing there but himself and the human boy stuck to the wall. The garage was cold.

Zim put his disguise back on.

"She let you down gently!" Dib said. "That's kinda disappointing."

Gently? Let down? "Why do I feel so _awful?"_

He had not meant to say that at all, let alone so loudly.

"It looks like I found another one of your weaknesses!" Dib said. "Except I can't really use this one... because I'm not a cute Irken girl. Um... hm, that came out weird."

Zim had lost all motivation to argue with Dib or move or breathe or blink.

Dib made a small thinky noise. "Gee, you seem completely devastated even though she wasn't that great of a person and she totally went easy on you. Zim, was that your first crush or something?"

"No. Yes. I don't know."

"Huh. Aren't you old?"

"No."

"I remember I liked this girl in the first grade," Dib reflected. "But then she hit me with a shovel. And I didn't like her anymore. I don't like people who hit me with shovels. So, uh, I'm stuck to this wall and it's kinda cold out."

Zim began to slowly shuffle out of the garage.

"Okay, that's fine," Dib said. "I can break out of this, it's fine."

Zim did not answer.

GIR was sitting there on the couch when he got back. "So how'd it go?"

Zim shed his hat and his scarf and his disguise and flopped down on the couch. "She's gone."

"Yay!"

"No, GIR, that's bad! It's terrible!"

"Why? Isn't she bad?"

"Well- maybe. Hmph."

They'd put an emotion suppressor on him when he was kidnapped and he thought he still had most of it in his Pak... he could rebuild it... turn up the intensity so it worked better...

No! He wasn't so weak and so controlled by emotion that he needed to do anything drastic to numb it. He was still an Invader. Right? An Invader!

He pulled out his notepad. Where was that list of reasons why he didn't like Tak?

Huh! He had an email.

_Zim,_

_Thank you for allowing me to reside in your base without attempting to do anything to my brains. We may meet again someday but don't count on it. Slap Dib for me. He is incredibly obnoxious._

_\- 3 Tak_

"It's a heart," he said. "She sent me a heart!"

_PS: You may email me if you choose. I won't always answer._

Zim squeaked.

"Woo!" GIR said. "What kinda noise was that?"

"GIR, she likes me! She wants me to email!"

"Yay!"

"I have to compose the perfect reply." He opened an email window.

_Tak, 3_

No!

_Tak, I do not like you_

No, too harsh.

_Tak, I will disembowel Dib just for you_

Better.

"Let me try," GIR said.

"Hm, no." Zim tapped the end of the stylus against his cheek. "Ooh, I have to make sure the Tallest give her a mission! That will make her happy. Maybe I'll call them now. Oh, no- I have to get back to work. I, uh-" That motor was going to explode if he didn't check it.

He stood up, hugging the notepad to his chest. "I'm going to the lab. Stay here and don't touch anything."

"Can I watch TV?"

"Yes. Computer, the lab."

He caught himself humming a tune on the way down.

* * *

Tak had an email.

_Tak,_

_Yes! Dib is obnoxious. I will disembowel him a thousand times, just for you. I called the Tallest, they're going to give you a mission any time now. I have work to do so I'll email you again bye Tak sincerely, INVADER ZIM_

She saved it to her hard drive. She'd reply in a little bit, with something far more articulate and probably less awkwardly seething with kittenish excitement.

Was he really going to be able to get the Tallest to give her a mission? Only time would tell, she supposed. If not, obviously she had alternate, more reliable courses of action.

All in all, her trip to Earth had been incredibly successful in every way she'd planned and a few ways she hadn't. (The Tallest would forget about the explosion, right? Probably. She hoped.)

She turned on the radio and cranked it up.

Everything should oly get better from here.

**-end**


End file.
